Text messaging brings home the pizza

By PETER GRIFFIN

Auckland company DataSquirt is on its way to securing a multimillion-dollar business in the fast food market, as it moves into other countries with its system for using mobile phones to order from Pizza Hut.

DataSquirt, which makes software applications for mobile phone transactions, has built the "m-commerce" platform, allowing British customers to order pizzas from 300 Domino's Pizzas outlets in Britain.

DataSquirt general manager Julian Smith said "advanced" negotiations were also under way with Pizza Hut and other fast food chains in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.

"The UK market will be worth several million dollars to us within two to three years," said Smith, who has been regularly travelling to Dubai to meet executives from Americana, which has the Pizza Hut franchise in the Middle East.

For DataSquirt, the United Arab Emirates had become a market surprisingly ripe for development - people eat a lot of pizzas there.

"It's really hot there and people don't like to go out. So deliveries are popular," Smith said.

The international success follows the growth in New Zealand of the text messaging service which allows users to text through their pizza order to a Pizza Hut call centre.

More than 50,000 transactions have already been notched up. The service has cut costs at Restaurant Brands' call centre, as text messages are quicker to handle than phone calls.

Customers pay cash when they pick up the pizza or have it delivered, or they can pay via credit card by registering through www.textcode.co.nz.

While DataSquirt charges Pizza Hut a flat fee, Smith said other deals being hammered out overseas worked on a "percentage of transaction value" model, which would be lucrative for DataSquirt.

"We clip the ticket each time an order is placed," he said. "And 54 million pizzas are sold in Britain each year."

Datasquirt is now considering basing itself from an office being set up in Dubai by NZ Trade and Enterprise. The office will be a resource for other New Zealand companies trying to secure a Middle East foothold.

Another big market opportunity for DataSquirt is the TV shopping networks, with their once in a lifetime steak knife and motivational audio tape deals.

"What happens with TV shopping networks is something is advertised on TV and 25,000 try to ring through. Text messaging can avoid that overload."

Smith said DataSquirt was funding development from revenue and that the company had not been held back by IT Capital's abandoned plans to buy the company.