McDonald's drops its biggest hint yet that it will debut a new chicken sandwich to compete with Popeyes before the year is over

• McDonald's plans to launch new items by the end of 2020, the company's CEO, Chris Kempczinski, said in an earnings call on Tuesday.
• Investors speculate that one of these new items could be a long-awaited chicken sandwich to compete with Popeyes' juggernaut.
• McDonald's franchise owners have long been pushing the company to develop a chicken sandwich that can compete with Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.

McDonald's trimmed its menu down significantly due to the pandemic, but many of those items are coming back — along with some new ones, according to a McDonald's earnings call on Tuesday.

"I do know that there is innovation that is planned for later this year that's going to bring some menu items on," McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said in the call. "And then what US operators have talked about with our team has been, let's just make sure every item that we add earns its way back onto the menu."

In a report shared with Business Insider, research firm Gordon Haskett speculates that one of McDonald's new menu items could be a new chicken sandwich.

"We expect to see the new line of chicken sandwiches introduced in the fourth quarter of 2020," the report reads.

McDonald's franchisees have long been pushing the company to develop and release a chicken sandwich to compete with Popeyes and Chick-fil-A. In a leaked email from January, franchisees urged the company to "stay focused" on developing a competitive chicken sandwich.

The chain tested two new chicken sandwiches in December 2019 and January 2020, but the company has not commented on whether it plans to move forward with rolling out those sandwiches.