Domino’s enjoys 23 percent profit for half year

Sarah Stowe

Domino’s Pizza is celebrating a $12.6 million half year profit, up 23 percent on the corresponding period last year.

The pizza franchise also enjoyed same store sales growth of 8.4 percent, although the figure is down from last year’s 9.1 percent. The Australia and New Zealand market has experienced same store sales growth of 8.7 percent while the European operations recorded 7.5 percent growth.

Domino’s CEO Don Meij said the strong first half results were supported by successful product launches across both markets and the growth of the company’s digital business in Australia and New Zealand.

He added Domino’s commitment to improving ingredients and use of better quality products resulted in the introduction of healthier menu items during the first six months of the 2012 financial year.

“We have seen significant results from our focus on improving the quality of pizza ingredients. We introduced free range chicken on our pizzas, took out notable amounts of fat and sodium from some of our most popular ingredients and also improved the overall taste while achieving these results,” Meij said.

“On a digital note, social media is now bigger than ever for us. On Facebook we have more than 410,000 fans making us the biggest Australian Quick Service Restaurant using the social platform to connect with our customers on a daily basis.”

Across in Europe Meij said the same store sales continued to be strong while it focused on opening more corporate stores in The Netherlands, which now has 15 Domino’s outlets, and strengthening the depth of the European management team.

“We have been very pleased with our European results for the first half of 2012. We continued to focus on improving customer value by creating new pizza recipes with higher quality ingredients and it reaped results for us.”

Looking forward, Meij said Domino’s was confident of continuing the growth trend across both the markets and as a result was upgrading its 2012 full year guidance and is upgrading its EBITDA and net profit growth for the 2012 full year to be in the region of 20 percent.