McThai Co, the operator of McDonald's burger restaurants, plans to spend at least 5 billion baht to almost double its number of stores over the next five years.
This plan is expected to also double its sales by 2020.
Chief executive Hester Chew said about 1 billion baht will be spent each year to open new fast food stores and upgrade its facilities from 2016-20. McDonald's stores will reach 400 by 2020, up from 223 last year.
Of the budget this year, 800-900 million baht will be spent to open 25 McDonald's outlets, of which half will be drive-through stores, and the rest will be used to upgrade the IT system to increase work efficiency.
The company has already opened four new stores in the first two months of this year in Bangkok and upcountry. It hopes to see its sales grow at a double-digit rate this year.
McThai will hire about 1,000 new workers under its expansion plan this year.
The opening of new stores will boost the number of McDonald's branches this year to 248.
"If we can grow our sales at a double-digit rate this year, our performance will improve a lot as low consumer spending made us have single-digit sales growth last year," Mr Chew said.
He said it was necessary for McThai to expand its fast food business this year even though the overall economy was slowing.
The company has to deal with increasing operation costs because competition is becoming intense as more local and international food brands enter the market.
"We still see tremendous growth opportunity for McDonald's in the Thai market," Mr Chew said.
Increasing costs may see the number of street food vendors decline, creating an opportunity for McDonald's.
"We will continue to invest, no matter whether consumer spending power is good or not, particularly on people training and product quality, which are the two areas where we never compromise," Mr Chew said.
McThai will continue to build its brand even though McDonald's has been in the Thai market for three decades. McDonald's is the leading global food retailer, with more than 35,000 restaurants serving 70 million people in more than 100 countries each day.
McThai believes new digital activities should be offered to attract the younger generation.
Mr Chew expects the Thai economy will be better this year due largely to the government's stimulus economic package and the allocation of fiscal budget on infrastructure projects.