McD's service disrupted: A global technology outage on Friday brought operations at many of the McDonald's outlets across the world to a standstill. The key markets of the quick service restaurant (QSR) chain that were hit by the tech outage include Japan and Australia, even as the company ruled out the possibility of a cybersecurity incident.

A McDonald's India spokesperson said the global outage had taken a hit on the placement of orders in several of its outlets, but added that the tech glitch was being rectified. 

“We are aware of a technology outage which impacted our restaurants, the issue is now being resolved. We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event, ” said the spokesperson, of McDonald's North & East India. 

Notably, several McDonald's stores in Japan barred in-person and mobile customer orders due to the system disruption, a spokesperson at McDonald's Holdings Company Japan said, adding that the company was working to restore operations soon.

"We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved," McDonald's said in a statement. McDonald's Australia said some of its restaurants were back online serving customers after the outage and were working to restore the remaining stores.

McDonald's has about 40,000 restaurants worldwide, with more than 14,000 stores in the United States. It operates nearly 3,000 stores across Japan and roughly 1,000 in Australia, its websites for the regions show.

The outage is said to have affected customers in Hong Kong, New Zealand and the UK as well, with people taking to social media to complain about disruptions at stores.  Media reports said McDonald's Hong Kong was experiencing a "computer system failure", adding that the mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks were not functioning. Earlier this month, Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram also faced technical issues that disrupted global services for hundreds of thousands of users for more than two hours.

(With Reuters inputs)