Jim Cramer said Domino’s might just earn the award for best earnings’ report of the season.
The pizza company beat revenue expectations Thursday morning by nearly $100 million, at $785 million, compared with $692 million expected. Earning per share was also higher than expected at $2 a share versus $1.77. And, both domestic same-store growth and international same-store growth doubled or nearly doubled.
Overnight the stock jumped from just over $233 to more than $250 — a 7.3 percent increase.
“Domino’s Pizza did it again,” Cramer said on “Mad Money” Thursday. “Domino’s has become a technological powerhouse.”
Cramer checked in with outgoing CEO Patrick Doyle and his successor Ritch Allison, who will assume the post of CEO this summer, to find out what’s next and what’s behind the company’s success.
Turns out the right ingredients might lie in new technology, such as Hotspots and an artificial intelligence voice-ordering system. The company is currently piloting the voice system in 20 stores. Meanwhile, customers can now order to about 200,000 Hotspots, or non-traditional locales such as beaches and sports stadiums.
“It’s our path to being a 100 percent digital company,” said Allison, who is currently president of Domino’s International.
That means pizza lovers and convenience-seeking consumers alike can order from a park bench or bus stop, among other locations, without ever having to talk to another human being. Doyle said it’s truly the best possible customer experience.
“You call our store on a busy Friday night [and] it may not be a great experience, right?” Doyle said. “I mean, it’s busy; the people are running around making pizzas and the easier we can make that for them, to take great care of our customers, the better the overall experience is going to be.”
The pizza giant, which began as a single store in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1960, has grown to more than 14,000 shops internationally with about 260,000 employees. The company sells more than 2 million pizzas each day, or about one in six pizzas in the U.S.
Doyle, who will step down from his post as CEO at the end of June, also divulged the most rewarding experience he has had in his eight years at the helm.
“Over 90 percent of our franchisees in the U.S. started as hourly workers, they work up through the system, they run a store, they’re successful, we give them the opportunity to buy a store and become an entrepreneur and we’re this little entrepreneurial factory,” he said. “It’s what’s most special. It’s what I’m going to miss, is these amazing people that have created this opportunity for themselves and the people in their businesses.”
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