Scottish football fans helped drive up first-half sales at Domino’s Pizza Group, thanks to takeaway orders on the day of their team’s Euro 2020 game against England.
Posting interim results today, Domino’s said orders around the latest clash in international football’s oldest rivalry reached their highest level of any UK trading day this year.
Scotland held “The Auld Enemy” and eventual finalists to a 0-0 draw, but Domino’s was a winner all the way with a bumper night for deliveries.
Domino’s reported a strong UK and Ireland performance during the 26 weeks to June 27, with total system sales up nearly 20% at £752.3m.
The year-on-year increase was boosted by a reduced rate of VAT as well as higher orders throughout the group stage of the Euro 2020 tournament.
Underlying pre-tax profits surged by 27.7% to £60.8m, which Domino’s said was “driven by the strength of the core business and lower Covid-19 related costs”.
The company added another £35m to its existing £45m share buy-back programme and will pay an interim dividend of 3p per unit of stock on September 24.
Domino’s said its “digital momentum” was still in full swing, with UK online sales up 25% by volume.
The company also reported “excellent progress” on the disposal of discontinued operations in Sweden, Iceland and Switzerland, as well as “constructive engagement” with franchisees “as we work together to reset our relationship to drive growth”.
Domino’s said 13 new franchised stores opened in the first half were trading ahead of expectations, boding well for plans to open another 17 in the current trading year.
It added its second half had got off to a good start, thanks to a “supercharged” marketing campaign and the extended involvement of England at the Euros.
‘Fantastic service levels’
Chief executive Dominic Paul said: “I am delighted with the performance of the business in the year to date. We’ve worked closely with our franchisees to maintain fantastic service levels to our customers, while continuing to prioritise the safety of our colleagues and customers.
“We have continued to invest in the business as we focus on delivering our strategy with the opening of a new state-of the-art supply chain centre in Scotland (Cambuslang), the launch of our redesigned mobile ordering app, and the roll-out of our supercharged marketing campaign which has strengthened our brand and significantly boosted awareness levels.”
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