Domino’s Pizza hails strong UK and Ireland performance
Domino’s Pizza has reported that its group system sales rose by 4.5% in its first quarter as the company made a good start to the financial year in the UK and Ireland.
System sales in the two countries rose by 4.8% in the 13 week period to 31 March following a 4.7% uplift in the UK and a 7.4% increase in Ireland. While UK like-for-like sales grew by 3.1%, like-for-likes in Ireland were up 6.8%.
David Wild, Domino’s chief executive, said: “With continued like-for-like growth, the year has started well across our core UK and Republic of Ireland markets, which account for 90% of our business. Our digital expertise remains a key driver of customer engagement, with online accounting for a record 81.7% of total sales in the UK. We remain in open and ongoing dialogue with our UK franchisees, actively exploring win-win solutions for stimulating growth and new store openings.”
The company’s international performance was not as strong due to weak system sales and a first quarter operating result below last year. System sales were up 1.1% in local currency which Domino’s said was disappointing.
Wild added: “Given persistently weak system sales in all our International markets we no longer expect this part of our business to break-even this year. We are therefore further tightening our focus on International costs and capital deployment. We will provide a further update at our first half results.”
Domino’s has opened 11 new stores in the year to date, of which seven are in the UK. This has taken the group total to 1,271.
