This is not true. McDonalds has plenty of corporate stores in the US (I worked for one as a teenager); not all stores are franchises. In countries like China they do not franchise at all; instead every store is owned by a joint venture.
And of course Starbucks will never franchise (well, Marriott, but look at how that turned out)...they aren't even very happy about joint ventures.
> And of course Starbucks will never franchise (well, Marriott, but look at how that turned out)
Interesting - I always assumed that the "we proudly brew Starbucks" locations at bookstores/college cafeterias/airports/malls/rest stops/etc. were franchises. They look just like Starbucks except on close inspection: they often don't accept Starbucks cards or run the promotions, for example. These are at places where all of the restaurant frontends are operated by Sodexho or Aramark, and occasionally the restaurants are connected behind the counter (sometimes staff may even be observed moving back and forth as demand warrants). Are those joint ventures?
Its one thing to buy beans from Starbucks and sell them back to consumers. "We brew starbucks coffee" is like saying "we sell Coke."
There are "starbucks cafes" operated by big companies who aren't starbucks: Barnes and Noble is the biggest one, then you have Sudexo in the states (wish Sudexo could do that in my office building!), and of course Marriott in some hotels and airports.
Most of the starbucks in China are JVs, but they've been trying to get out of that for awhile now. I'm not sure if they finally were able to throw off their Chinese partners or not. Other countries I'm not sure, but I think Japan is all owned by Starbucks themselves. They also are playing around with the Seattle's Best Coffee brand for some co-run stores (Sudexo has started doing that at Microsoft in Redmond).
I don't think I would call the co-managed stores joint ventures. It is a very specific term with significant political/legal implications.
For a data point, McDonald's owns roughly 7,000 restaurant locations globally, and they have around 35,500 total restaurants (so ~28,500 owned by franchisees).
Your assumption is in line with the underlying principle - money made from collecting licensing and franchisee fees actually is more profitable than money made from selling burgers. This implies that over time large fast food operators should tend to become more and more franchised, and we see this playing out in the market place right now [1].
The reason why fast food brands aren't 100% franchised already is because they need to constantly learn about their customers/products/operating environments/fast moving trends etc. The best way to do this is to actually operate your own stores where you can experiment and learn very quickly. The younger the brand, the few outlets it has, the more it still needs to learn, so corporate ownership will be higher. As the brand matures over time that number is expected to come down to e.g. 15-20%.
Its not really just that. McDonalds is pretty international, and some countries are franchise unfriendly, hostile even. So they do a joint venture in China as well many other countries. McDonalds is at 15% today, but much of the 85% is organized under JVs outside of the US.
Also, while the costs and risks are higher to do a corporate store, they also make more money on it, and since they have capital, why not invest in the business they know rather than outsource in an otherwise finite-growth market? I would expect the opposite to happen: over time, the company collects capital and moves to own its brand rather than lend it out. In contrast, a young company that lacks capital will see franchising as much more appealing as it allows them to extend their brand and reach while sharing risk and investment.
Starbucks was, is, and always be corporate. That they are forced into JVs and partnerships sometimes is completely political (China; Marriott won't let them run stores in some airports where they have exclusive contracts; etc...).
You are right that some environments have draconian franchising rules, and force fast-food operators into alternative operating models (i.e. corporate/JV owned outlets). An important distinction for me is that those alternatives are forced onto brands, and if they had a choice they would swap to the franchise model. We see this playing out with McDonalds in China - as soon as franchising rules have been relaxed slightly, McDonalds went into high gear recruiting traditional franchisees to fuel growth in China [1]. Of course there are other places where operating directly makes a lot more money, but those are very very rare (e.g. Russia).
In regards to McDonalds investing back into the business they know, you are right again. However, what they know best is not running restaurants but investing into property. The self-proclaimed description of McDonalds' business model is that they are in real estate, not hamburgers [2]. The latest available annual report shows that the 7,000 company stores generated ~$3B profits, but McDs made as much on royalties and twice as much on renting out properties to their franchisees [3]. Further, store margins are going down fast while royalty/property margins are going up. This year more than half of McDonald profits will be from collecting rent - flipping burgers and selling royalties is a nice side hobby. So to maximise their core business, they have to maximise how many renters they have, i.e. increase the number of franchisees.
Burger King and Wendy's are attempting to move to a total franchised model. Burger King has managed to dramatically boost their net income by doing this for example, and their market valuation has soared accordingly; so now Wendy's is beginning to chase the same model.
At some point within the next 12 to 24 months, Burger King will be almost entirely franchised.
The franchise model got McDs started and a lot of chains still use it heavily (e.g. subway). But the "chain store" model (centrally owned and operated) is actually an alternative to the franchise model, and seems to be more popular these days with the newer ventures.
And of course Starbucks will never franchise (well, Marriott, but look at how that turned out)...they aren't even very happy about joint ventures.