McDonald's Corp, the world's largest fast-food chain, has been in India for the last thirteen years. Having tasted failure in its initial years, the company was quick to adapt to the Indian consumer's taste buds and has come out with flying colours.

The fast-food chain has finally turned profitable despite being in the midst of one of the most difficult economic conditions over the past one year. McDonald's now even plans to double its revenues from India in the next three years through new outlets.

"We believe in cautious growth. Our focus right now will be to grow into the smaller cities as so far we have largely grown in the metros and round the big cities," said Vikram Bakshi, managing director of McDonald's India.

Added to that Mc Donald’s mantra for growth is going to be a slew of tie-ups not only to open stores at the petrol pumps and malls but also to open stores at the railway stations as well as highways. In fact, it expects almost 20 per cent of the overall revenues to come from the highway stores by 2012.

But there is a twist to this tale, keeping costs under control has been a major headache with rentals shooting through the roof. What this means is that as many as 30 per cent of its planned store openings have been put on halt.

"Rental prices have been going high and in some places we have had to put a break to our expansion plans. I admit that it is now a serious problem," Bakshi said.

McDonald's foray into chicken nuggets this year is also seen as a direct attack on KFC – a potent rival in the fast food market in India, but the management is confident that his new Indianised product offerings and strong backend along with cautious expansion will do the trick in maintaining their lead.