Listed franchisors Domino’s Pizza has laid claim to having Australia’s most successful iPhone apps released by a business, after revealing that its pizza ordering app has generated $2 million worth of sales in just 12 weeks.
The success of the iPhone app, released in November 2009, was announced as Domino’s posted a 39.2% rise in net profit for the six months to December 31, with revenue up 5.3%.
While chief executive Don Meij told SmartCompany that continued innovation in the company’s menu range was a big contributor to the result – including the expansion of the chain’s lunch menu and new healthy meal options – it is clear that the company’s willingness to embrace technology is paying dividends.
Online ordering now accounts for 28% of sales and the company’s decision to invest in an iPhone app has paid impressive dividends.
Meij says the company developed a very conservative estimate of the sales potential of the iPhone app, partly due to the difficulties in getting good figures about iPhone usage in Australia.
He also admits that the company saw it mainly as a marketing tool that would help it to target its demographic of younger consumers.
“It was a marketing initiative, but it had to have a business case too. The sales have been seven times our expectations.”
Meij says the development of the app was a big job. “It’s sort of like making a movie, with the amount of storyboarding that’s involved and the time spent on navigation and the like.”
Meij says the company, which operates in several European countries, will now look at rolling the app out into other markets.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
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