Rising sales for pizza chain: Domino's off to strong start in 2012

FOOD CHAIN Domino’s Pizza got off to a strong start in 2012, with “robust” trading pushing sales at its stores in the Republic up by 2.3 per cent, the first return to positive territory in three years.

The company, which has 48 stores in the State, said online orders were surging as a result of the new mobile apps that allow customers to pick their pizza and order it directly from their phone.

However, chief executive Lance Batchelor noted that the Irish market remained tough, with preliminary results showing like-for-like sales were down 4.1 per cent in the year to December 25th, 2011.

That compares with a fall of more than 8 per cent last year.

“I am encouraged to see a gradual slowdown in the decline, although we are now up against some easier comparative figures,” said Mr Batchelor. “During the year, we opened only one new store but we still anticipate growth in this market in the future.”

The company also introduced a number of new products last year, including the more upmarket Gourmet range.

Domino’s, which operates the British and Irish franchises of the global brand, opened its first Irish store in 1991 and now has 48 stores in the State and 19 in Northern Ireland. In total, the company has 726 stores in Britain, Ireland and Germany, and opened 62 new stores last year. It expects to add 12 new stores in Germany this year.

In the preliminary results, the company reiterated its target of opening 60 new stores every year in Britain and Ireland.

Domino’s released applications for tablets and smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2011. Orders via the internet rose by 43 per cent last year and, according to the company, some stores take almost three-quarters of their orders online.

“The rise of e-commerce in our business has been breathtaking and we are now regularly taking around 50 per cent of our orders online, with daily sales far in excess of the £1 million mark,” Mr Batchelor said.

Across the group, like-for-like sales grew by 3 per cent in mature stores, lifted by a surge in online orders from customers choosing to stay at home in the economic downturn.

Pretax profit, excluding start-up losses at its German business, rose 14.6 per cent to £43.6 million in the year, above analyst estimates. Additional reporting: Reuters