Domino’s Pizza CEO Russell Weiner detailed the company’s most recent quarter in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, explaining why he’s optimistic about the rest of the year despite reporting a mixed first quarter.
“In the short term, look, we had a quarter, we missed a little bit, but…we won on market share. We grew market share,” Weiner said. “We’ve grown market share almost a point pretty much every year…that I’ve been here for, 16 years.”
Domino’s on Monday posted a revenue miss and reported that same store sales declined. But management still guided for growth later this year, saying in a statement the company is well-positioned despite “a challenging global macroeconomic environment.” Shares initially dipped during the session but rebounded by close, finishing up 0.63%.
Weiner explained that the first quarter was “probably the lightest quarter as far as big initiatives” for the pizza maker and highlighted new plans to bolster business, including the rollout of stuffed crust. Domino’s will also partner with DoorDash for delivery, Weiner continued.
While the company had initially stayed out of the “aggregated marketplace,” he said it’s now a substantial part of where consumers order pizza, and “we need to meet customers where they are.” He claimed that there’s about $5 billion of pizza sold in the aggregated marketplace, and about $1 billion could be Domino’s. Weiner noted that his company partnered with Uber last year, but he alleged that DoorDash sells twice as many pizzas as the platform.
According to Weiner, Domino’s is unaffected by new global tariffs “from an ingredient standpoint.” He acknowledged broad worries about the potential decline of consumers’ disposable income. But he said Domino’s generally provides value, and it has a good supply chain with scale, so the company won’t pass high prices on to franchisees or consumers.
“We have the ability during these tougher times to continue to build this competitive mode and offer value long term to customers,” Weiner said. “This is really what we are built for.”
