A McDonald's logo at a branch of the fast food restaurant. Andy Rain, EPA-EFE/file 

Hungry McDonald's customers in parts of Asia had trouble ordering at stores, on phones and at electronic kiosks on Friday after a system outage.

In Japan, it experienced "a system failure" and was "temporarily suspending operation at many outlets", the US fast food giant wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

China was also affected for several hours, with the outage a hot topic on social media platform Weibo. The company later said its online ordering system had been fully restored.

McDonald's in Hong Kong wrote on Facebook that its "mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks are not functioning" but later said its system was "gradually returning to normal".

In South Korea, McDonald's said services had been temporarily suspended due to "regular server maintenance for website stabilisation."

In Australia, it was a gamble whether diners found their local McDonald's open or closed.

One McDonald's in Sydney's eastern beachside suburb of Maroubra was closed to customers, with a sign on the door reading: "Server Problem (can’t take order)".

In the Philippines, an ongoing "system interruption" caused disruption to some outlets, a McDonald's representative told AFP.

Some McDonald's in Taiwan were closed in the afternoon, displaying notices that "due to equipment failure, we are temporarily unable to operate".

Singapore and New Zealand were also hit, according to media reports.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s Corporation told AFP in a statement: "We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved. We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

"Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event."