Domino’s order counts rose “meaningfully” in both its delivery and carryout businesses during Q2 2026, CEO Russel Weiner said during a Monday earnings call.
“This means that while other restaurants were fighting for orders, millions of new customers came to Domino’s,” Weiner said. “In the race for long-term dominance, our increase in order count during both the first and second quarters of this year highlights that more people are ordering Domino’s than ever before.”
Domino’s grew its order counts, in part, due to its partnerships with the aggregator marketplaces, DoorDash and Uber. Weiner said management believes that Domino’s is the top pizza player on both platforms.
Domino’s has partnered with third-party delivery aggregators since 2023, when it teamed with Uber Eats. It expanded its reach by adding DoorDash last year. Domino’s uses the aggregators to expand its customer reach, but fulfills the orders itself. Weiner said last year that aggregator delivery orders could represent $1 billion in incremental sales over time.
“We are acquiring more customers that we wouldn't have been able to acquire otherwise by being on the aggregator channel,” CFO Sandeep Reddy said during the call. “This continues to build, and this also continues to compound over time as we spend more time on the platform.”
This compounding has already started to occur with Uber, and the brand expects to see a similar effect on DoorDash over time, Reddy said.
“That’s why we’re so bullish on the future with the aggregator platform[s] as we move forward,” Reddy said.
Pricing on aggregators also remains at a premium, so the channel can be profit-neutral for franchisees, Reddy said.
Despite its top position with aggregators, Domino’s expects there to be even more growth opportunities ahead to achieve “our fair share,” Weiner said.
He added that it analyzes what customers order from Domino’s and on aggregators, and studies where customers go when they don’t buy pizza. This work has helped identify an opportunity to add a new menu item.
The chain is also using new technology to improve both first-party and third-party delivery, Weiner said. Domino’s is setting up its back-of-house to better optimize “just-in-time pizza making,” using an orchestration agent, Weiner said. That technology allows for team members to better monitor order flow to make sure that as soon as the pizza is out of the oven, it goes to the delivery driver and then straight to the customer.
If the driver is late coming back from an order, the agent will not even show the store the order details until the driver is available. In the past, the company would just make the order, and it wouldn’t be as hot upon delivery.
“One of the secret ingredients for us is we deliver our product no matter [what channel] the order comes, and it's part of this ecosystem that we're getting better and better every day,” Weiner said. “I think not only in the front end are we going to be delivering great value, but that value is going to pay off on the back end because there's no one who's going to be able to deliver a hotter product than we will.”
Improving a slip in same-store sales growth
The quarter did bring some disappointments as the chain's same-store sales growth of 0.1% did not meet expectations due to a “miss on ticket,” Weiner said, adding that was largely in management’s control.
Same-store sales also fell below expectations during the first quarter, with growth of 0.9%. Comparatively, Q4 comparable sales rose 3.7%. While Weiner tied many of the issues during the first quarter to the economy, he said Q2’s issues are largely fixable.
During the second quarter, Domino’s lapped its Stuffed Crust launch, which came with higher ticket and mix in the prior year. To roll over this, the chain launched a premium series, including a new Slice Sauce. But this debut didn’t resonate with customers, as messaging wasn’t compelling enough, he said.
The chain improved its messaging and started the third quarter with an updated Best Deal Ever offer that included Stuffed Crust. So far, the new deal has resonated well with guests, Weiner said.
The company also plans to roll out additional innovations during the third quarter and second half of the year, that will include a pizza innovation “that is unlike anything we’ve offered before at Domino’s,” Weiner said.
“We believe this new product will address an unmet consumer need, but this time with a pizza that is unique to Domino’s,” he said. “This signature product will give customers a delicious new reason to come to Domino's, while protecting the core pizza occasions that have been key to our success.”
