D

omino's Pizza Indonesia, the local franchise of the US pizza parlor, said that it enjoyed at least 40 percent growth this year thanks to the company's aggressive expansion in the country's restaurant industry.

Domino's Pizza Indonesia director Merrill Pereyra said Wednesday that the quick service and delivery restaurant planned to have 60 stores by the end of the year.

'Currently, we have 55 stores and we will be opening the remaining stores in the next three weeks,' he said, during the opening of their latest store in Jakarta. He added that 80 percent of their stores were in the capital city, with the remaining spread between Bandung and Bali.

He added that Domino's has scored 'great results and acceptance' from the domestic market, which they entered five years ago. Business, he said, had grown approximately 40 percent annually this year.

'Our sales have been growing between 10 percent and 15 percent per week,' he said, adding that the selection of 'value meals' drove sales. According to him, Domino's Indonesia has clinched a 15 percent market share in the domestic pizza market.

However, India, where the franchise has operated for 15 years, remains one of their biggest markets in Asia, with roughly 600 stores,
he noted.

Yet, Domino's Pizza International vice president for Asia Pacific, Steven Pizziol, added that the potential for Indonesia to be a major market was huge given that the market for pizza was expanding.

'As the young population grows ' becoming consumers whose spending contributes to the economy ' they are looking to try different foreign foods,' he pointed out.

He said Domino's Indonesia sought to expand aggressively through the addition of new sales channels, the latest of which was digital.

Domino's Indonesia has designed an online store for customers to place online orders through. The site will go live before the end of the year, and by the first quarter of 2014 they will launch a mobile application version of the site.

'In other countries, online orders have become a big contributor to sales growth. We have some markets in Asia where online orders contribute 50 percent to sales, and the percentages continue to grow,' he said.

Meanwhile, Pereyra added that orders placed via digital channels would take off in Indonesia given that the number of Internet users of 60 million people was increasing by 30 percent yearly.

'Right now, orders made via our call center constitutes 25 percent of sales,' he said.

Mitra Adi Perkasa spokesperson, Fetty Kwartati, said that their food and beverages portfolio contributed around 13 percent to their nine-month revenue of nearly Rp 7 trillion (US$583.77 million). 'The contribution of food and beverages to revenues has gone up by 1 percent in the last two years,' she said, adding that the company had around eight food and beverage brands in their portfolio. Mitra Adi Perkasa has more than 100 brands in their portfolio, including Debenhams and Starbucks.