Pizza firm in Echo tie-up as sales cool

L Latest results reveal a marked slowdown in likefor-like growth

of 3.75p, up 7.1 per cent on a year earlier.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “With sales, profits and dividends all up, the headline numbers look strong enough at first glance. However, given there’s plenty of growth potential baked into Domino’s share price, the key figures were always likely to be rising in these results.

“The worry is that the group might be bumping up against the sides of the tank far earlier than it previously thought.

“In the last 12 months, Domino’s opened around 100 stores in the UK. While these openings are driving headline revenues, they are cannibalising sales from existing stores.

“There are other worries too. With household incomes squeezed by inflation, investors will be concerned that consumers are increasingly counting the pennies.”

Wayne Brown, analyst at Liberum, added: “The halfyear results are relatively as we had expected, with a declining like-for-like sales profile impacting underlying margins. Order count growth has lagged store opening growth and mature like-for-like sales has fallen behind a rise in average ticket growth, suggesting that volumes in mature stores are running at around minus 3 per cent.”