NEW YORK – American fast-food chain McDonald’s has apologised after customers in parts of Asia and Europe reported having trouble placing orders at its restaurants on March 15.

The disruption, which in Asia affected markets in Singapore, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, led some restaurants to suspend online ordering and others to close entirely.

The cause of those problems was a “global technology outage”, according to McDonald’s.

The company did not specify how widespread the issue was but said several markets were affected.

The outage was “quickly identified and corrected”, chief information officer Brian Rice said in a statement on March 15 that was also sent to global employees and franchisees.

He noted that it was not caused by a “cyber-security event”, but by “a third-party provider during a configuration change”.

The problems first appeared in Asia, reported Bloomberg.

Taiwan halted phone and online ordering while McDonald’s Japan said many outlets were forced to suspend their operations as the outage worsened.

Problems also occurred in Germany and other markets during the morning in Europe, the company added.

Mr Rice said that while many markets were back online, some were still “experiencing issues”.

“What happened today has been an exception to the norm, and we are working with absolute urgency to resolve it,” he said, apologising to customers and restaurant owners.

The outage appeared to hit restaurants in several countries.

In a post on X, McDonald’s Japan said its restaurants were having technical difficulties because of a system failure.

Later, in a separate post, it said “many” stores across the country had suspended operations because of the issue, without saying how many. Japan has about 2,900 McDonald’s restaurants, the third most in the world after the US and China.

McDonald’s Hong Kong said on Facebook that it was also experiencing a “computer system failure”, stating that “the mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks are not functioning” and asking customers to order directly at the restaurant counters.

McDonald’s Taiwan said on its website that it had temporarily suspended online and telephone orders.

McDonald’s in Singapore said in a statement on March 15 at 6.30pm: “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 cyber-security event.”

Customers in Britain said they had difficulties using the McDonald’s app on the same morning, according to Downdetector, a site that monitors reports of outages.

In Australia, photos on social media captured signs on the doors of some McDonald’s outlets apologising to customers for causing inconvenience.

Australian news outlets reported that some restaurants had closed, while others had reverted to an analogue approach, with some workers taking orders with pens and paper.

Some restaurants in Australia and Asia appeared to have returned to full service by evening.

McDonald’s in Hong Kong resumed normal operations and customers could use its app and self-ordering kiosks, according to a post published around 5pm local time on its official Facebook page, said Bloomberg.

Online ordering had also restarted in mainland China, according to a Weibo post.

At a restaurant in Richmond, Melbourne, customers ordered shakes and burgers, crowded around self-service ordering machines and lingered over shared French fries.

Workers at the restaurant said the outage had lasted about two hours and that customers had paid in cash.

Mr Jeremy Ruz, a customer in Newcastle, Australia, had been at the drive-through attempting to pick up dinner for his children when their plans were stymied by the system failure, he said.

“People were coming out with a notepad and pen, saying they couldn’t take cards,” he said. “There was a queue a mile long.” NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG