McDonald's hired customers to boost sales

McDonald's Holding Co. Japan Ltd., a unit of the world's biggest restaurant company, said about 1,000 people were hired to patronize one of its outlets, inflating sales when a new hamburger was introduced this week.

The restaurant in the western Japan city of Osaka had a daily sales record of about 10 million yen ($110,000) on Dec. 23 when it introduced the Quarter Pounder hamburger to its menu. About 1,000 of 15,000 customers on the day were hired by a market research company on behalf of McDonald's.

"We didn't know that some of the customers that queued to buy the new burger on that day had been paid," McDonald's Japan spokesman Kenji Kaniya said by telephone today.

McDonald's Japan's research company hired the staff as part of a study into customer response to the new menu item, he said.

Japanese media reported earlier this week that some customers lined up all night ahead of the introduction of the hamburger to the western Japan region.

McDonald's Japan, 50 percent owned by Oak Brook-based McDonald's Corp., fell 3.1 percent to close at 1,850 yen in Tokyo. The Topix index gained 1.3 percent.