You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: With me on the call today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Kempczinski; and Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Ozan.
As the largest restaurant business in the world our size and scale are competitive advantage that we've built and nurtured for over six decades.
Our 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries are predominantly run by local owner operators, connecting the business to the 40,000 communities in which we operate.
These local connections and better level of agility that complements our size and scale, enabling local teams to adapt and adjust to operating conditions that vary by country, community and even restaurant in real time.
It's what makes McDonald's special.
It's also how we're able to use the scale and agility.
How we can be both big and nimble to achieve something truly unique.
From restrictions driven by new COVID variance, to supply chain pressures and labor shortages across industries, to any other unknown, unknowns.
We're approaching the one-year anniversary of Accelerating the Arches, which took shape in response to changing customer needs early in the pandemic.
Rooted in the inherent strengths of the McDonald's system and brand, it's proving to be the right strategy with the right focus at the right time.
We're evolving the customer experience in ways both large and small to meet changing customer needs and maintain our market leadership.
Our three growth pillars known as our MCDs marketing core menu and the 3Ds of digital, delivery and drive-thru guide our business.
This includes amplifying contactless channels like delivery and drive-thru and creating digital experiences that are seamless personalized and easy to use.
Our third quarter topline results represent a continuation of our broad-based business momentum around the world with global comp sales, up nearly 13% or 10% on a two-year basis.
Our International Operated Markets have continued to recover accelerating two-year comp trends in the third quarter to nearly 9% as most markets operated with fewer government restrictions.
There is still varied performance across the big five markets within the IOM segment ranging from strong double-digit two-year growth in the UK and Canada to low single-digit two-year growth in Australia, Germany and France.
As those countries have been slower to recover from the pandemic.
The UK continue to leave the segment in the third quarter, driven by growth in delivery and digital channels, as well as strong menu and marketing promotions like monopoly.
In Canada, the strong two-year comp momentum was driven by successful marketing activity, including core extensions like the Grand Mac and Spicy Nuggets and growth in the 3Ds of drive-thru delivery and digital.
Even as dine-in restrictions have lifted.
In France and Germany, comp sales exceeded 2019 levels for the first time in the third quarter.
Germany's positive performance was supported by expanded deployment of delivery.
The national launch of our loyalty program My McDonald's rewards and a taste of McDonald's promotion featuring value offerings like McChicken.
France benefited from continued strength in delivery and strong menu and marketing promotions with a focus on family.
Market conditions are challenging with the adoption of vaccine past restrictions for both customers and crew in France and several other countries.
Performance in Australia was impacted by significant stay at home restrictions affecting over half of the restaurants for nearly the entire quarter.
While comp sales were relatively flat for the quarter, the market was positive on a two-year basis and continued to grow its delivery channel achieving record delivery sales for the quarter.
As we look ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect the IOM segment to maintain a relatively similar two-year comp trend as Q3.
In the US, we maintained our momentum with Q3 comp sales, up nearly 10% or 14.6% on a two-year basis.
We continue to see positive comps across all day-parts on a two-year basis with sustained double-digit comps at dinner and breakfast.
At the same time franchisees continue to achieve record high restaurant cash flow.
Our US franchisees have never been better positioned to weather the labor and inflation pressures, while still investing in growth.
Performance in the US remains driven by strong average check growth reflecting larger order sizes and menu price increases.
The big bets we've made during the pandemic are paying dividends across the business and enabling us to maintain our QSR leadership.
Menu and marketing efforts with products like the Crispy Chicken Sandwich and successful Famous Orders like the Saweetie Meal have elevated our brand and help drive underlying sales growth across the business.
The launch of our loyalty program in the US has exceeded expectations and is driving increased digital adoption.
In just a few short months, we already have over 1 million members enrolled with over 15 million active loyalty members earning rewards, and we expect that number to continue to grow.
Chris will share more loyalty headlines in a few minutes.
We've reopened nearly 80% of our dining rooms in the US, roughly 3,000 dining rooms remain closed in high risk COVID areas, as we continue to prioritize the health and safety of our customers and crew.
In restaurants where we have reopened dining rooms front counter in kiosk sales remain below pre-pandemic levels, but we're seeing that even modest increases in these channels help to relieve operational pressure in the drive-thru.
The strong performance in the US has continued into October, we're currently seeing low double-digit comps on a two-year basis and we expect that to continue through the rest of the fourth quarter.
Turning to the International Developmental Licensed segment.
Comp sales were up nearly 17% for the quarter, or about 5% on a two-year basis.
Performance was largely driven by positive results in Japan and Latin America, partly offset by negative comps in China.
Japan maintained momentum in Q3 with comps, up 13% achieving an impressive six consecutive years of quarterly comp sales growth, despite restaurants operating with government restrictions.
The market's performance is being driven by a continued commitment to serve customers safely and conveniently through our drive-thru and digital channels, as well as strong marketing and limited time promotions.
China continues to be impacted by both COVID resurgences, which restarted in June and lasted throughout the quarter and a softening economy.
While comps for the quarter were negative, the market continues to build its digital presence as they now have over 100 million active digital members.
In addition, we've accelerated new restaurant growth in China, with over 500 new restaurants already opened this year, we now expect to open roughly 650 restaurants for the year, exceeding our original plan.
China remains a critically important market for us and one where we have confidence in the long-term opportunity.
So we plan to get even more aggressive in opening new restaurants in this market.
With our strong overall sales performance for the first three quarters of the year, we now expect systemwide sales to be up in the high teens in constant currencies for the full-year.
Our results are a testament to the focus of our teams on driving growth through our MCDs and we're confident that momentum will continue.
After playing a pivotal role in building out our fan truth strategy in the US, we're going to slightly as transitioning into the role of Global Chief Marketing Officer.
Following the instantly iconic global campaign Morgan developed with BTS, Famous Orders again cross-borders with both Russia and Spain launching successful campaigns with local celebrities in the third quarter.
These markets leaned into the idea that truly no matter how big or famous you are or where you are in the world, everyone has their go to McDonald's order.
I've known Tariq for many years and I'm confident Tariq will maintain our marketing momentum in the US.
Behind our marketing success as McDonald's craveable core menu.
In the US Crispy Chicken Sandwich sales continue to exceed expectations.
This translated into significant growth in QSR Chicken market share as we continue to support the Crispy Chicken Sandwich platform with culturally relevant marketing.
In the UK, we launched our McSpicy sandwich, which generated the market's best Chicken promotional results on record.
And in Canada, our Spicy McNuggets promotion had a halo effect on McNuggets sales.
This quarter, we introduced the McPlant team, which in Austria and the Netherlands as a limited time offer.
And both the UK and Ireland launched the McPlant in a limited number of restaurants.
With a goal to rollout nationwide in January.
McPlant is available for other markets to pull down based on customer demand.
As always we'll do what McDonalds does best, listen to our customers, when people are ready for the McPlant will be ready for them.
Being customer driven is about more than just menu items.
It's also about delivering feel good experiences when and where our customers want McDonald's, so we can bring the Golden Arches to as many customers as possible.
That means continuing to increase our engagement across drive-thru, digital and delivery.
As we do that, we're seeing an increase in sales mix across these channels.
In our top six markets over 20% of sales or about $13 billion year-to-date came through digital channels, whether it was through our app, kiosk in our restaurants or delivery.
Our loyalty program has been an instant fan favorite and delivers great value to our most loyal customers.
It also creates another touch point to increase engagement and take our relationship with customers to more responsive, more personalized places.
We're already seeing increased customer satisfaction and higher frequency among digital customers, compared to non-digital.
In September, we launched our loyalty program in Germany quickly amassing millions of active reward to customers.
And we're on track to bring MyMcDonald's Rewards to Canada by the end of the year and the UK and Australia in the first half of 2022, which means that by mid-2022 loyalty programs will be in our top six markets inclusive of France, which has had a strong loyalty program for many years.
Delivery is another bet we made long before COVID and one that we believe will continue to be a staple for consumers for years to come.
Over the past five years, our delivery footprint has grown from just 3,000 of our restaurants to more than 32,000 restaurants across 100 countries.
As the needs of our customers who continue to change delivery has enabled us to increase our reach and gross sales around the world.
We're actively engaged in discussions with our largest delivery providers to support the extraordinary growth in our delivery business.
We look forward to sharing more information on these global partnership soon, but this is yet another example of where our scale confers upon us competitive advantages.
Lastly, our drive-thrus, with the drive-thru presence that is second to none, our drive-thru sales across our top six markets continue to stay elevated versus pre-pandemic levels even as dining rooms reopened.
We previously shared that we have been testing automated order-taking in the drive-thru at several restaurants in the US.
This was enabled by our acquisition of Apprente now known as McD Tech Labs in 2019.
These tests have shown substantial benefits to customers and the crew experience.
To enable development and scale deployment of this program, McDonald's has now entered into a strategic relationship with IBM.
In my mind, IBM is the ideal partner for McDonald's given their expertise in building AI powered customer care solutions and voice recognition.
IBM will now acquire McD Tech Labs to further accelerate the development of automated order taking.
We're in a strong position today, focused on executing our plan, running great restaurants and taking advantage of our unique size and scale to feed and foster communities.
Our strong performance for the quarter resulted in adjusted earnings per share of $2.76, which excludes the gain as we completed the partial divestiture of our ownership in McDonald's Japan.
Our strong sales generated an increase in restaurant margins of about $500 million for the quarter.
G&A increased about 20% in constant currencies for the quarter, driven by higher incentive-based compensation expense as a result of company performance exceeding our plan this year.
We still expect G&A to be about 2.4% of systemwide sales for the full-year.
Year-to-date adjusted operating margin was 44.3%, reflecting the improved restaurant margins across all segments and higher other operating income, compared to last year.
Foreign currency translation benefited Q3 results by $0.04 per share.
Based on current exchange rates, we expect currency to have a minimal impact on fourth quarter EPS, with an estimated full-year benefit of $0.21 to $0.23.
As usual, this is directional guidance only as rates will likely change as we move through the rest of the year.
And finally in September, our Board of Directors approved a 7% dividend increase to the equivalent of $5.52 annually.
This marked 45-years of increasing our dividend for shareholders, further reinforcing our confidence in accelerating the Arches.
We also announced the resumption of our share repurchase program.
As a reminder, we had suspended share buybacks at the beginning of the pandemic as we took on additional debt to provide liquidity support to the McDonald's System.
Since then, we've been focused on returning to pre-COVID debt ratios that support our strong investment grade credit rating.
Going forward, we're confident that our operating performance will continue to fuel growth in our already strong free cash flow profile.
As a result, we're committed to our historical capital allocation priorities: first, to invest in new restaurants, existing restaurants and opportunities to grow the business.
Then we expect to return all free cash flow to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases over time.
We've accomplished so much the past 20-months and even though the pandemic has greatly altered so much in our business and our world, it hasn't changed the simple fact that we're better together than we are apart.
For a long time we had a bridge physical separation with technology and new ways of working, but as vaccines have reached critical mass of people in the US and some places around the world, we're beginning to see a different future taking shape.
Finally, we're coming together again in our communities and cities around the world are beginning to open up and get back to a new normal.
The same is true for our global McFamily, after being closed for over a year and a half the McDonald's headquarters reopened on October 11th and it was inspiring to see teams collaborating again in person.
To protect the health and safety of our staff, we required all US-based corporate employees to get vaccinated.
And we're continuing to monitor local data and seek guidance from public health officials.
Even though we've only been back for a few short weeks, we have found that working in the office together spurs a level of collaboration, creativity, and connectedness that simply could not be replicated from behind our screens.
And we're going to be doing the same thing with our global system soon.
Next April in Orlando franchisees, suppliers and employees will convene for our worldwide convention in person for the first time in four years.
It's already shaping up to be an experience unlike any other.
Together we'll showcase McDonald's bright future, we'll demonstrate the power of technology for our restaurants, learn how innovation is enhancing the customer experience and discuss plans in the pipeline to drive our Accelerating the Arches Growth plan.
As I've said before, it's not only important that we grow, it's equally important that we grow sustainably and in ways that positively impact the communities we serve.
Driving climate action has been a centerpiece of our long-term strategy for a while now.
And our focus has sharpened.
In fact in 2014, we established public commitments intended to make our entire system more sustainable by 2020.
Among our goals were to sustainably source 100% of key ingredients, including coffee and beef.
Looking back this was just the beginning of what would become a much bolder agenda that we are pursuing with urgency.
As the threats to our planet have grown, we are responding with a more ambitious plan for ourselves and for the entire industry.
We achieved many of our 2020 goals ahead of schedule and we built upon that momentum to set new ambitious targets.
Just this past September, we announced that we would reduce the use of conventional virgin plastics and Happy Meal Toys by 90% by 2025.
We recently announced our ambition to achieve net zero emissions across global operations by 2050 and we joined the UN Race to zero.
And I look forward to sharing more of our sustainability story with climate delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP26 in Glasgow next week.
We believe we have both a privilege and a responsibility to help lead on issues that matter most and communities.
And there is no issue more globally important and locally impactful than protecting our planet for generations to come.
This is why I continue to remain optimistic about what lies ahead for McDonald's.
Accelerating the Arches fortified by our purpose and guided by our values makes me confident, not just in the future success of our business, but also for the future of the communities that we serve.
With that, we'll begin Q&A.

user
mcdonald's - ‍excluding strategic gains of $0.10 per share in 2021, $0.13 per share in 2020, qtrly earnings per share was $2.76.
mcdonald's - qtrly u.s. comp sales benefited from strong average check growth driven by larger order sizes, menu price increases.
mcdonald's - qtrly international operated markets performance was led by very strong positive comp sales in uk, positive comp sales in canada, france.
mcdonald's - qtrly international developmental licensed markets performance reflected strong comp sales across most regions, led by japan and latam.

assistant