March 19 (Reuters) - DP Eurasia, which operates theDomino's Pizza brand in Turkey and Russia, reported 28.9 percentgrowth in annual core earnings on Tuesday helped by theexpansion of its store network and rising like-for-like sales.
The company, which is Domino's fifth-largest masterfranchise, reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax,depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 96.8 million Turkishlira ($24.61 million) for the full year, compared with 75.1million lira a year before.
Its adjusted net profit, however, fell 39.4 percent to 21.7million lira, driven by foreign exchange losses of 11.7 millionlira, DP Eurasia said.
The pizza delivery firm increased its like-for-like sales by10 percent in Turkey and 28.9 percent in Russia, driven byonline orders, which accounted for more than half of alldeliveries.
"We had a strong start to 2018 in line with ourexpectations, with like-for-like growth of 10.7 percent and 25percent in Turkey and Russia," said Aslan Saranga, who has runthe company since 1996.
The chain, backed by Turkish private equity group Turkvensince 2010, opened two stores in the first two months of 2018and said it is on track to meet its target for the year of 30stores in Turkey and 40-60 in Russia.
The company raised its capital expenditure target for 2018by 8 million lira in Turkey and 75 million roubles ($1.30million) in Russia, due to the depreciation of the lira againstthe dollar and the euro, and as it plans to spend more on IT,including a GPS tracker project.
($1 = 3.9335 liras)($1 = 57.7301 roubles)(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka, editing by Louise Heavens)
