McDonald's suffers outages at stores worldwide, including Japan, Australia

McDonald's said on Friday it had halted operations at many of its stores in Japan due to a system disruption and was facing technical outages at some other outlets worldwide, including Australia.

Many McDonald's stores in Japan stopped taking in-person and mobile customer orders because of the system disruption, according to a spokesperson at McDonald's Holdings Company Japan, who added that the company was working to restore operations.

A McDonald's Australia spokesperson said they were also aware of a technology outage impacting restaurants nationwide and were working to resolve this issue.

The company operates nearly 3,000 stores across Japan and roughly 1,000 in Australia, its websites for the regions show.

The New York Times said McDonald's Hong Kong was also experiencing a "computer system failure," stating that the mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks were not functioning.

The fast food chain has about 245 outlets in Hong Kong, according to its website.

Some of the more than 160 stores in New Zealand also reported outages. A company spokesperson told the New Zealand Herald newspaper: "Restaurants are experiencing an IT issue that's impacting their ability to process orders."

McDonald's Hong Kong and New Zealand did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the outages. McDonald's Corp also did not immediately respond to a request for a comment about the cause of the outages suffered worldwide. (Reuters)