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By Raechel Thankam Job
(Reuters) -Britain's Domino's Pizza Group on Tuesday posted a slower start to 2025 and forecast muted annual profit growth amid broader economic woes, sending shares down 3.8%.
British firms are tackling the prospect of waning demand, as higher taxes and labour costs raise concerns about price hikes, impacting consumer spending habits. However, Britons defied a weak outlook for the economy to ramp up spending in January.
Still, Domino's reported like-for-like sales growth of only 0.7% for the first ten weeks of 2025, trailing its fourth-quarter growth of 3% that was fuelled by higher orders.
Total system sales - a term used in the franchising industry to represent sales of all outlets that use a brand - also grew by a slower 2.4% in the same period in 2025, compared with the preceding quarter.
Shares of the company fell as much 4.4% to 280.9 pence by 1049 GMT, having risen as much as 2.3% earlier in the day in volatile trading.
Despite uncertainties in the macro-environment, CEO Andrew Rennie told Reuters the company currently does not have the same inflationary pressures it had faced last year, and said it will continue to deliver the discounts it had provided last year.
Rennie said Domino's will accelerate investments in automation to support growth without adding labour, to mitigate the expected impact of 3 million pounds per year from rising labour costs following the UK budget.
The group, which operates under the umbrella of U.S.-based Domino's Pizza in the UK and Ireland, forecast 2025 underlying core profit to be in line with market expectations of 143-148.2 million pounds ($184.9-$191.6 million).
In 2024, Domino's reported core profit of 143.4 million pounds.
Separately, the company also named Ian Bull as its new chair, replacing Matt Shattock, who will be stepping down in April after five years in the role.
($1 = 0.7736 pounds)
(Reporting by Raechel Thankam Job in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Chizu Nomiyama )
