DP Poland Plc (LON:DPP) narrowed its losses in the first half of the year as Poland continues to demonstrate that it is a pizza-loving nation.
In the six months to the end of June, the Domino’s Pizza franchise holder saw like-for-like sales rise by 28% compared to the same period last year, while total sales increased by 57% to £3.2mln.
That’s now 15 consecutive quarters of double digit like-for-like sales growth.
The strong sales figures meant group revenue was up 70% compared to the first half of last year to £2.96mln, while the EBITDA (underlying earnings) loss was reduced to £728,397 (1H 2015: £773,591).
“We saw more than a doubling of both corporate store EBITDA and commissary gross profit in the first half of the year driven by rapid sales growth and improvements in food costs,” said chief executive Peter Shaw.
“The continuing improvement in group EBITDA losses will accelerate as the growth in overheads necessary for rapid expansion becomes proportionately less significant to accelerating sales."
Since the beginning of 2016, six new stores have opened and three more cities have come on stream.
There are now 29 Domino’s Pizza stores in seven Polish cities, 16 of which are corporately managed, with the remaining 13 sub-franchised.
DP Poland said it has a pipeline of further openings for the second half of this year, with one new store ready to open and three more under construction.
In terms of trading outlook for the second half of 2016, the AIM-listed company said sales in July and August had “continued in the same vein” as the first six months of the year and it expects this to continue throughout the rest of 2016.
DPP said it didn’t expect Brexit to have any impact on the Polish economy or the business itself.
Shares closed at 49.5p on Friday.