KEY POINTS:
Domino's Pizza, the Australasian franchise of the US pizza chain, will add at least 35 stores in Europe each year until it hits a target of 1000 stores, betting on rising demand for home-delivered food.
Domino's, which serves more than 60 million pizzas each year, also said its European operations, which account for less than a quarter of total sales, could overtake its home market.
"We would be thinking that 35 stores a year would be our minimum target," Domino's chief financial officer Richard Coney said.
"Ultimately, Europe will be bigger than Australia and New Zealand from sales to store numbers to profits," he added, though he did not give a timeframe.
Domino's currently operates 667 stores, including 404 in Australia, 65 in New Zealand and a total of 198 in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Australia contributed A$169.5 million ($202.6 million) in sales in the 2007 financial year, or 73.7 per cent of total sales. Europe accounted for 21.6 per cent, with the rest coming from New Zealand.
Coney said that Europe's fragmented pizza market offered big growth opportunities for Domino's.
"The home delivery segment is a growing market in Europe because of the convenience and there is not a lot of supply. It's not something that has been developed because you haven't got any of the big chains making a big push into the market."
Coney said France had about 12,000 small, independent pizza stores.
Domino's, which has a market value of about A$206 million, posted a net profit of A$9.1 million in the year to June 2007, down 30 per cent from A$13 million in the previous year. For 2008, Domino's forecasts net profit to increase by about 25 to 30 per cent to between A$11.4 million and A$11.8 million.
