KEY POINTS:
New Zealand operations were a sterling contributor to a 30 per cent lift in earnings for Australian fast food operator Domino's Pizza.
The ASX-listed company yesterday announced net profit after tax for the year ending June 29 was A$11.8 million ($14.42 million), up from A$9.1 million last year.
But the result was propped up by a sell-down of its corporate-owned stores in Australia. The Australia-New Zealand market revenue for the group - which has outlets in New Zealand, Australia, France, Belgium and the Netherlands - actually fell from A$180.4 million to A$160.7 million.
Chief executive Don Meij said the company does not break out New Zealand market revenue figures for "competitive reasons" but said the New Zealand stores were the strongest performer in the Australia-New Zealand market, total same-store sales grew 4.1 per cent.
"New Zealand's the star in our Australian-New Zealand business.
"It beats every other market in Australia. Even in our earnings, despite the currency movement with the New Zealand dollar, it's still performed quite well because we've had such strong growth."
The company now has 72 stores, up from 65 last year, and Meij said it was looking at opening another five to 10 stores over the next 12 months. Unlike Australia, the company has only one corporate store here, with the rest run by local franchisees.
"We said that saturation would be about 85 stores in New Zealand."
High prices for ingredients such as cheese have proven a challenge, but Meij said this has been offset by the popularity of the Big Taste range, where customers can opt to add on more ingredients for an additional fee.
He was confident New Zealand operations would continue to perform strongly, despite an economic downturn.
"Pizza's very resilient in economic downturns. We think we're going to ride through whatever economic challenges are out there."
