Domino’s Pizza sees jump in deliveries, takeaways

Jubilant FoodWorks, the company behind Domino’s Pizza and the franchisee for Dunkin’ Donuts in India, reported a growth of 10% in its delivery sales and 55% in its take-away sales for August compared to the same month of last year.

However, dine-in sales were still down 84% compared to August 2019, resulting in a net decline of 15% in its August revenue for 2020 compared to the same month of 2019.

The numbers were disclosed as part of the company’s update on its operations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to deal with it.

For the three months from April to June this year, overall sales fell by 60.5%. Even deliveries, which reported a growth of 10% in August, were down 33% for the three-month period, while take-aways (customers coming to the outlet and purchasing the item) were down 57%.

As expected, the worst month for the company was April. However, even then, the company’s delivery service was still running. However, revenue from the delivery service fell 53% in the month compared to April 2019.

In May, delivery sales were still down about 30% vs the previous year, while in June, they were down about 20%. July saw delivery sales almost come back to normal, with August seeing the 10% increase.

Similarly, for take-aways, April was the worst month with a 96.4% drop, followed by May which saw a 72% decline. However, take-aways bounced back faster, and had almost recovered to previous-year levels by June (down 6.6%). In July, they reported a growth of 22% and in August a growth of 55%.

However, dine-in customers are still staying away from its restaurants due to health concerns, and dine-in sales were still down 84% in August, though it was a slight improvement from July, when it was down 89%.

Out of the 1,360 stores — which also act as the delivery centers — 1,126 (83%) were operational as of August. During the worst period (April), only 673 (51%) of the restaurants were open out of 1,330.

Despite the pandemic and the lock-down, Jubilant FoodWorks added 30 new stores in the last four months, taking the total to 1,360 as of the end of August.

Store status

Excluding the impact of the closed stores, sales were at 90% of the last year’s levels as of August, the company said. Including the closed stores, they were at 84.6% of last year’s levels.

The company closed down 4 of its Dunkin Donuts outlets during the Apr-Jun period, bringing its total DD outlets down to 30 from 34. Dunkin Donuts outlets had been at 30 for quite a few months, but the company had added four new restaurants in the six months between October 2019 and March 2020. Now, the number is back at 30.

Dunkin Donuts is available in 10 cities in India, while Domino’s is available at around 290 cities and towns.

“I am proud of the way the entire JFL family rose to the challenge last quarter and delivered a resilient performance,” said CEO Pratik Pota.

“Responding swiftly to the crisis, we were the first to introduce Zero Contact Delivery and amongst the fastest to resume store operations. We worked on a focused cost reduction program and used the crisis to affect structural changes – variabalization of manpower, culling of unprofitable stores and foraying into the FMCG segment with the launch of ChefBoss. Our revenue recovery in July and August was encouraging, and we had returned to growth in the Delivery and Takeaway channels by August. We are excited about the future and confident that we will emerge from this crisis stronger
than ever before.”