The Simpsons and football World Cup help boost Domino's Pizza

Campaigns starring the Simpsons cartoon family and footballer Michael Owen helped boost sales at Domino's Pizza by more than 18% in the half-year to 2 July.

System sales across the group's 428 stores in the UK and Ireland grew from £97.1m to £114.8m during the half-year.

Growth was driven by 21 new openings and by four "strong" advertising campaigns.

These included the group's first Simpsons-branded pizza (a development of its two-year licensing deal with the TV show) followed by a Football Fanatic pizza promoted on TV by Michael Owen.

Chief executive Stephen Hemsley added that the World Cup helped counter the onset of the hot weather, which normally depresses sales.

E-commerce sales rocketed by 46.9% to £9.6m to account for 12.3% of the group's sales of delivered pizzas and are expected to make up one-fifth of the company's delivered pizzas by 2010.

During the year, the group disposed of two more corporate stores, compared with 13 in the first half of 2005. It now has just three owned stores, the rest being franchised.

According to Hemsley, 76% of new openings were with existing franchisees and each franchisee now has an average of 2.78 stores.

Hemsley said the group was on track to opening 50 new outlets during the full year, although he warned that like-for-like sales in the second half would be more modest than the 8.3% achieved in the first half.

Group turnover (which includes royalties, fees, food sales, rental income and corporate stores) grew by 11.4% to £45.1m while pre-tax profit soared by 24.5% to £6.3m.

Domino's sales continue to grow >>

E-commerce sales grow strongly at Domino's >>

Ex-Greene King man joins Domino's >>

By Angela Frewin

Get your copy of Caterer and Hotelkeeper every week -