Most Popular Fast Food Chains in The World

15 Largest Fast Food Restaurant Chains in The World by Number of Locations in 2022

Subway is no longer the most popular chain in the world this year after closing hundreds of stores. McDonald’s has taken the lead with 40,000 stores. Subway and Starbucks follow with 38K and 33K stores each. At a distant fourth is KFC. Pizza Hut beats out Burger King for the first time ever to be in the top 5.

Top 15 most popular fast food chain list:

1. McDonald’s

2. Subway

3. Starbucks

4. KFC

5. Pizza Hut

6. Burger King

7. Domino’s Pizza

8. Dunkin’

9. Hunt Brothers Pizza

10. Taco Bell

11. Wendy’s

12. Baskin Robbins

13. Hardee’s

14. Orange Julius

15. Papa John’s Pizza

The cuisines

Out of the top fifteen, all of the chains are American brands. What’s most striking is that all of these fast food chains are of Western cuisine. Most of them specialize in sandwiches and burgers. Four are pizza chains. Taco Bell is only “Mexican-inspired” and in fact sells American food. Two, Starbucks and Dunkin’, are coffee shops. Only Orange Julius is a chain of fruit drink beverage stores and Baskin Robbins is an ice-cream chain.

Source: Annual Reports collected by Wikipedia. The numbers are updated in 2022.