10:58 AM EDT, 03/15/2024 (MT Newswires) -- McDonald's (MCD) temporarily closed some restaurants Friday following a tech outage that impacted its app and hindered customers' ability to place orders in certain regions.

"We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved," McDonald's wrote in an emailed statement. "We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

The event is notably "not related to a cybersecurity event," the fast food chain said.

Reports of a possible outage spiked on Downdetector, a crowdsourced site that tracks app and website outages, early Friday morning in Australia and Japan. In the US, elevated reports continued through mid-morning.

McDonald's Japan said many stores across the country had temporarily suspended operations, according to a Google Translation of its post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

McDonald's Australia said the outage affected all of its restaurants, according to its message posted on X.

McDonald's had 41,822 restaurants operating worldwide at the end of 2023. The US is the largest market by far, with more than 13,000 restaurants, while Japan has nearly 3,000 and Australia has roughly 1,000, company data showed.

Global comparable sales at McDonald's climbed 9% last year, with growth in internationally operated markets and international developmental licensed markets marginally outpacing the US. Analysts surveyed by Capital IQ had been expecting slightly stronger growth of 9.4% in 2023.

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