--- title: "Wendy’s sales fell again last quarter, but the company sees progress in international" url: https://burnaze.com/article/58fd55b3-a0ed-4555-b88e-f464de8f270a source: "Nation's Restaurant News" original_url: https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/wendy-s-sales-fell-again-last-quarter-but-the-company-sees-progress-in-international author: "Jonathan Maze" category: "Burger" industry: "Restaurants" segment: "Burger" published: 2026-05-08T14:36:06.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T13:16:47.570Z image: https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/bltea7aee2fca050a19/blt859b43438ffe7bdb/69fdf5654ac64a7ff0e2eea5/Wendy_s_Shutterstock_3.jpg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale --- # Wendy’s sales fell again last quarter, but the company sees progress in international **TL;DR:** Wendy's same-store sales fell 7.8% in the first quarter, but the company sees progress in international sales, with a 1,000-unit deal to expand in China. The company operates over 1,400 locations outside the US, up 50% in the past five years. *By Jonathan Maze, originally published in Nation's Restaurant News on 2026-05-08. [Read the original](https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/wendy-s-sales-fell-again-last-quarter-but-the-company-sees-progress-in-international).* ## Key facts - Wendy's same-store sales fell 7.8% in Q1 - International same-store sales declined 0.4% - 1,000-unit deal to expand in China ## Story Wendy’s same-store sales fell 7.8% in the first quarter, the company said on Friday, as struggles among low-income consumers and the chain’s shift away from breakfast proved too tough to overcome. But international is a relative bright spot, though same-store sales outside the U.S. also declined, by 0.4%. ## International growth Still, the company reached a 1,000-unit deal with an unnamed restaurant operator to expand the brand in China, a potentially landmark deal for a chain eager to open restaurants internationally. Wendy’s operates more than 1,400 locations outside the U.S., up 50% over the past five years. But the company still has an issue in the U.S., where it is losing considerable market share to rivals McDonald’s and Burger King, which just reported same-store sales of 3.9% and 5.8%, respectively. Same-store sales at the Dublin, Ohio-based chain were down at least 6.2% in each of the past four months, with the worst performance in February. That includes a 6.4% decline in April, during the company’s second quarter. The chain's domestic same-store sales have fallen for five straight quarters. Wendy’s results were better than analysts expected, sending the company’s stock up around 4% in early morning trading on Friday. ## Domestic challenges The chain has struggled with low-income consumers, who have been cutting back on dining out at fast-food restaurants in recent years. Wendy’s has had more success with higher-income consumers. But breakfast is also an issue. The morning daypart hurt Wendy’s same-store sales by 100 basis points, suggesting that the morning hours’ results are down well into the teens. Consumers have cut back on breakfast, currently the weakest daypart in the fast-food sector right now. But Wendy’s has also given some operators the ability to stop service in the morning, which is a “large part” of why the company’s morning results have struggled. “Breakfast remains an important daypart and growth opportunity for many restaurants in the system,” Ken Cook, Wendy’s interim CEO, told analysts. “Breakfast has been the most challenged daypart across the industry. That’s true both last year and this year, and we’re seeing the same thing.” One big challenge for Wendy’s, and many other fast-food chains, is costs. Beef prices have soared, which has forced the brand and its operators to pay a higher rate for food. Commodity costs were up 4% in the quarter. Restaurant-level margins at Wendy’s company stores declined 340 basis points to 11.4% of revenues. That could be a challenge for many of the chain’s operators, whose profitability is even worse. Last year, for instance, U.S. franchisees’ net sales declined 6% and the average operator’s EBITDA margin, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, was down 270 basis points to 9.3%. Wendy’s does believe operations improvements can work, saying that restaurants with better operations and customer satisfaction scores generate higher sales and profitability than the rest of the system. A quarter of the chain’s franchisees have implemented operations improvements and another quarter is in the process of implementing them. The company is also in the process of working with operators to close about 350 restaurants. Those closures should be complete by the end of the second quarter, Cook said. Wendy’s did not have an update on two major issues the chain is dealing with right now: A CEO search and its future as a public company. Wendy’s has been without a permanent CEO for the better part of a year. And Nelson Peltz, the company’s former chairman and biggest shareholder, has said he may buy the company. ## Entities - QSR (sector) - international expansion (topic) - McDonald's (company) - Nation's Restaurant News (publication) - Wendy's (company) - Burger King (company) - same store sales (topic) - China (location) - Jonathan Maze (person) - q1 earnings (topic) - Nelson Peltz (person) - Ken Cook (person) --- Originally reported by Jonathan Maze, Nation's Restaurant News (https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/wendy-s-sales-fell-again-last-quarter-but-the-company-sees-progress-in-international). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/58fd55b3-a0ed-4555-b88e-f464de8f270a).