'Pokemon Go' Is Getting People To Eat More Big Macs

McDonald’s is feeling the “Pokémon Go” fever.

During a third-quarter earnings call Tuesday, McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said the fast-food giant is getting a boost from its partnership in Japan with the makers of the blockbuster smartphone game.

“It’s doing great things for the business,” he said. “Customers respond to that on a day-to-day level at the restaurants.”

The announcement comes just five days after the game released in Japan, likely to become its most lucrative market. Ahead of the launch, McDonald’s struck a partnership deal with Niantic, the game’s developer, to turn the burger chain’s roughly 3,000 Japanese locations into “gyms,” geotagged real-life locations where players can battle each other’s Pokémon.

For now, McDonald’s has no plans to expand to partnership outside Japan, the birthplace of the Pokémon franchise, where individual gamers on average spend the most money on mobile games. But as the game launches in more markets, McDonald’s could be open to broadening the deal.

“It’s a global phenomenon, clearly,” Easterbrook said. “They’re working hard to roll it out across a bunch of different markets around the world, with great success.”

“Pokémon Go” was initially a major boon to Nintendo, which saw its stock nearly double in the two weeks after the game went viral in the U.S. But shares plummeted once investors realized Nintendo owns only 32 percent of the Pokémon Company licensing firm, meaning it isn’t likely to rake in big profits from the game.