Domino’s positive despite quarterly sales fall

Pizza delivery company Domino’s has stressed it has long-term growth plans for Ireland despite seeing a near 4% sales decline in its Irish operations during the final quarter of 2012.

In a trading update for the 14 weeks to the end of December, Domino’s Pizza Group — which operates the company’s interests in Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe — said that overall sales grew by 20%, year-on-year, to £174.5m (€214.3m). This was mainly driven by a 5% annualised growth rate in sales in its core UK division, which houses 612 outlets.

In the Republic, however, like-for-like sales during the period fell 3.8%, up on a 0.9% annualised sales fall for the same period of 2011.