McDonald’s is set for aggressive expansion across India.

Its franchisee Hardcastle says it will spend 300 crore ($50 million) to open 75 new restaurants within the next two years.

Hardcastle, a subsidiary of Westlife Development, currently runs 166 McDonald’s outlets across the country.

According to Hardcastle vice chairman Amit Jatia, the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry is maturing with many Indians now seeing eating out as a necessity.

He said India’s eating out market is worth an estimated $100 billion, up to $20 billion of which is spent in the QSR sector.

The company’s same store sales growth fell from 22 per cent in 2012 to 6.2 per cent this year due to the drop in the consumer sentiment.

“It did come down but it is compounding. In the last four to five years, we have doubled our same store sales,” he said.