How Domino's Pizza's Meaty Earnings Topped Q3 Views

By ELAINE LOW, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Strong same-store sales fired up Domino's Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) as the pizza chain reported meaty third-quarter earnings and revenue figures on Tuesday that topped forecasts.

Shares of the pizza chain leapt 7% to 81.02 in the stock market today.

Earnings jumped 23.5% to 63 cents a share, topping by 2 cents, and revenue grew 10.5% to $446.6 million, beating views for $434.8 million.
Domestic same-store sales rose 7.7% vs. a 5.4% rise in 2013, and international same-store sales rose 7.1% vs. a 5% rise the year before, the company said.

"Great people, food, service and technology have helped us deliver another strong quarter of global sales and profits," CEO J. Patrick Doyle said in a release.

"Our franchisees continued to drive vigorous store growth worldwide and have embraced our 'Pizza Theater' store reimage program in neighborhoods around the world."

The pizza-theater concept is a throwback to classic pizzerias, featuring "pizza-making artists" hand-tossing dough and a view of the food preparation area. The company, which has also tweaked its pizza recipes, first announced the new store design in 2012 and reportedly plans to convert all 11,000 locations to the concept store design by the end of 2017.

Rival Yum Brands (NYSE:YUM), which operates Pizza Hut as well as Taco Bell and KFC, rose 0.1%. Papa John's (NASDAQ:PZZA) climbed 2.5% intraday.

Culled from: http://news.investors.com/business