Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd.-operated pizza chain Domino's opened its 2,000th store in the country on Monday, a milestone it reached 28 years since its entry in the Indian market. India is now the top for the American pizza chain outside the US.
While the first 500 stores in the country took over 16 years, the last 500 have come only in 29 months reaffirming the brand's commitment to accelerated expansion in India, the company said.
Domino's plans to double its store count to 4,000 in India in the next 5-6 years, a top company official said. "It's the first time that a country outside of the US has reached over 2,000 stores," Domino's EVP, International Art D'Elia told PTI.
JFL, which operates Domino's stores in 421 cities, serves over 200 million pizzas annually.
The Indian market has a "huge growth opportunity" for Domino's, helped by a growing economy and the middle class. With its democratised offering, Domino's has made pizza accessible to more and more people in India.
"So, we expect India to continue to be one of the fastest growing markets in the world. It's a top five market today, and we expect it will continue to climb up the ranks in the size markets that we have outside of the US," he said.
JFL will add around 180-200 stores this fiscal and has lined up a capex of Rs 250 crore for FY25, a majority of which will be spent on expansion of the pizza business, said its CEO and MD Sameer Khetarpal.
"I think what happened in the US market in QSR, in the early 1970s and China beyond 2007-2008, I expect the same thing to happen in India," he said. Asked about the number of stores, Khetarpal said, "We are going to reach 4,000 stores in the next 5 to 6 years."
In terms of demand, he said post-Covid, it had slowed due to inflation, but it has again revived after the softening of key commodity prices. Domino's has opened one new store every two days, post Covid.
According to Khetarpal, he is "cautiously optimistic" for the growth but also raised concerns of rising wheat and milk prices, which are key ingredients of the pizza business.
(With text inputs from PTI)
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