Domino’s Pizza has reported a 3.3% like-for-like rise in sales for its Irish operations for the 13 weeks to the end of September, which represents the third quarter of the company’s financial year.
In August, Domino’s said it planned to open another two outlets here before the end of the year, which will take the number of delivery outlets it operates here past 50.
Although still rising, the quick-service restaurant chain’s sales in Ireland have been slowing. For the first half of its financial year, Irish sales increased 2.5%; but that was down from a 10% growth rate for the same period 12 months’ earlier, mainly due to this year’s wildly changeable weather conditions.
On the back of the latest third-quarter figures which showed a 6% jump in overall group organic sales, due to a rise in website and app orders Domino’s trimmed its full-year forecast for pre-tax profit in line with market expectations. It also announced a £25m (€28.5m) share buyback plan.
The company said it now expects pre-tax profit to be in the middle of the range of market expectations that it calculates as £93m to £99.6m.
The company said in August it was on course to meet a higher previous company-compiled consensus of £95.9m to £101.4m.
Domino’s shares rose up to 8%, before reversing early gains, after investors initially shrugged off the comments that pointed to full-year pre-tax profit at the bottom of the company’s previous guidance range.
Much like its parent company, Domino’s UK and Ireland franchise has been focusing on sales through online channels to fend off competition from app-based services like Just Eat and Deliveroo, which provide round the-clock food delivery.
Online orders in the UK rose 11.4%, year-on-year, in the quarter and accounted for 78.3% of all deliveries.
There was no breakdown of Irish sales, but in the first half of the year, online orders increased over 15% here.
The company also said its international operations spanning Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Germany would break even for the full year.