On Friday, McDonald's Corp. managed to delight investors and traders by reporting higher quarterly earnings, as strong performance in international markets managed to overshadow the chain's weak American business's performance, which is currently struggling with high unemployment rate and rampant discounting.

The world's largest chain of hamburger outlets also shared that sales trends have managed to remain much positive in January at restaurants that had been open for over a minimum of 13 months.

During December, US same-store sales surged by 1%, after recording two consecutive months of falls.

For the financial year's fourth-quarter, McDonald's posted earnings of $1.22 Billion, $1.11 per share, which is a substantial rise from the figure of $985.3 Million, or 87 cents a share, that was posted for the previous year's fourth quarter.

Revenue hiked by 7% to $5.97 Billion.