London, July 21 - Britain's largest pizza home delivery chain, Domino's Pizza UK & IRL Plc, said on Monday it was well-placed to exceed market expectations for the year after it reported a 33 percent rise in first-half profits.
The company, which operates the UK and Ireland franchise of the global brand, said pretax profit before exceptional items for the 26 weeks to June 29 was 10.9 million pounds ($21.71 million) compared with 8.2 million the year before. Sales at Domino's 526 stores rose 19.5 percent to 170.2 million pounds, incorporating like-for-like sales growth of 11.4 percent.
Executive Chairman Stephen Hemsley said new stores were trading "very strongly" on opening and the company is on track to open 50 new stores in the current year.
"Although we are mindful of the very strong comparatives in the second half of the year, we are confident of further strong growth in system sales and profits and are well placed to exceed market expectations for the year," he said.
Shares in Domino's have outperformed the FTSE All Share Food Producers Index by 44 percent since the start of the year with analysts saying the business is benefiting from customers saving money by choosing a takeaway rather than eating out.
Analysts' forecasts for full-year pretax profit currently range between 21.9 and 23 million pounds with the consensus at 22.1 million, according to a Reuters poll of nine analysts.
The company, which moved from AIM to the main market of the London Stock Exchange in May this year, is paying an interim dividend of 2.7 pence, up 42 percent.