Online sales lift Domino's profit

Domino's thanked online customers for driving up sales

Surging online orders for Domino's Pizza in the UK and Ireland have helped the firm to serve up a rise in profits.

Pre-tax profits after one-off items jumped 34.7% to £5.5m ($9.6m) for the 26 weeks to 3 July

Domino's added online sales had "gone from strength to strength", rising 64% with orders worth £6.5m. Such sales now makes up a 10.6% slice of its business.

Record store openings of almost one a week during the period was a further driver of rising sales, it added.

Browser boost

E-commerce sales were mainly driven by the group's internet site, while other orders came from TV links on Sky and NTL.

Finance chief Lee Ginsberg told the BBC that online orders tended to be more lucrative.

"The cost of the orders is 25-30% higher than those made by phone, possibly because people have more time to browse the menu," he added.

Development of the group's online platforms had also increased in-store efficiency, Mr Ginsberg said.

Phone orders are taken centrally and sent to the nearest delivery store online, leaving staff free to concentrate on making and delivering meals rather than picking up the phone and deciphering orders.

Like-for-like sales increased 8.4%, compared with 4.9% in the same period last year, with the company thanking the "highly successful launch" of its new cheese melt pizza for the rise.

Advertising push

New pizzas - which the firm plugs with big TV advertising campaigns - have proved to be a key driver of sales.

Its previous big launch for the double decadence pizza generated record sales of £1.2m in the six weeks to 2 January.

Chief executive Stephen Hemsley praised the group's "excellent progress" over the past six months.

With strong sales helped by record openings Mr Hemsley said the company was now aiming for a target of one new opening per week - or 50 stores a year.

"We look forward to opening a total of between 800 and 1,000 Domino's Pizza stores in the UK and Ireland, which should enable us to continue to deliver excellent growth," he added.