McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD), on August 8, 2014, said that it had seen a very poor July this year. McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD), one of the largest restaurant companies in the world, saw a reduction in its sales figures due to some safety concerns over its food in the region of Asia and United States.  The company announced that it plans to further trim down its sales forecasts for the current year as the predictions are largely at a risk of being untrue.

Sales in McDonald’s Corp.’s (NYSE:MCD) restaurants decreased by 2.5 percent during the month of July. Whereas sales in the restaurants that were opened last year, dropped by 3.2 percent in the region of U.S. and 7.3 percent in the region of Africa, Middle East and Pacific Asia. The figures were far above the predictions as the market analysts had expected the sales to drop by 2.6 percent in U.S. whereas 0.5 percent in the other countries.

It is pertinent to note here that the sales of the company dropped by 3.7 percent during the month of June and 2.5 percent during the month of July; these are the worst numbers that the company has posted since March 2003.

Shares of McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD) dropped by 21 cents and reached to $93.10 during the early trading session on August 8.

The company, on Monday, announced that it would be trimming down its forecasts. On Friday, August 8, the company, second time in a week, commented on its forecasts and said that they would go down even further. Such news from the company is spreading waves of anxiety among the traders.

Mark Kalinowski, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, recently commented on the sales of McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD). According to the researcher, the sales would further go down by 0.3 percent. If the estimates of Janney turn out to be true, McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD) would report its worst performance (annual) since 2002.

During 8 of the past 9 months, the sales from the same-stores of McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD) remained low. In the meantime, the competitors of McDonald posted remarkable earnings. For instance, Burger King Inc. reported its third fiscal quarter’s financial reports on August 7, 2014. The company saw an increase of 3 percent in the regions of Canada and United States.

The reason why McDonald is facing severe problems in its sales sector is the quality of meat that the Chinese Shanghai Husi plant supplied to the company. On July 20, 2014, a Chinese television report showed Shanghai workers using expired meat and picking raw meat from the plant’s floor, which spread a wave of food safety concerns about McDonald’s Corp.’s (NYSE:MCD) products all around the globe.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD) reported that its performance has gone down in the areas of Japan and China, after the release of that TV report. The markets that have been affected by this report represents around 10 percent of McDonald’s Corp.’s (NYSE:MCD) total sales.

The good news for McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE:MCD), however, was its sales figures in the European countries: the sales in same-store restaurants increased by 0.5 percent, beating the analysts’ estimates of -0.7 percent. The company, however, saw a decrease in the countries of Russia and Germany.

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