London, April 23 - Britain's biggest pizza delivery chain, Domino's Pizza said first-quarter like-for-like sales rose 9.3 percent as recession-hit consumers continued to order in to save money instead of dining out.
Domino's, which operates the UK and Ireland franchise of the global home delivery brand, on Thursday said sales in its 501 established stores were up but fell below the 12.4 percent growth rate it delivered in the first-quarter of 2008 because of this year's late Easter.
"Our underlying trading during the period continued to show good growth. We are pleased with our current performance and trading continues to progress in line with expectations," chief executive Chris Moore said in a statement.
Analysts, on average, expect the company to report a pretax profit of 26 million pounds ($37.87 million) for 2009.
The company, which operates from 563 shops and delivers to some 3 million homes annually, said it had opened 10 new stores since the beginning of the year and plans to open a further 50 outlets in 2009.
Domino's, which is in the second year of a three year deal to sponsor popular Saturday night TV show 'Britain's Got Talent', said first-quarter online sales rose 31.7 percent to 16.6 million pounds, accounting for 23.6 percent of its UK delivery sales.
Shares in Domino's, which have outperformed the FTSE All Share Food Producers Index by over 55 percent since the turn of the year, closed at 214 pence on Wednesday, valuing the group at around 360 million pounds.