Good morning. I can see the attendees are now in the session, so welcome to the Domino's Pizza Enterprises FY20 Full-year Results webcast. I'm Nathan Scholz, the Head of Investor Relations. Today, you'll be hearing from our group CEO, Don Meij, our group CFO, Richard Coney, and from members of our global leadership team responsible for our nine markets. Following the presentations this morning, we'll have a Q&A session. To enter your questions, simply click on the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. With that, I will hand over to our group CEO and managing director, Don Meij.
Thank you, Nathan, and welcome, everybody. Thank you for giving us your time today. I'm gonna start on slide three, and I wanna refer to a slide that we actually shared back at our CEO webinar back in June. And this slide is so relevant still today. And this was a point of time during COVID when you can see in the bottom end of this chart. It shows the most locked-down markets were France and New Zealand. In fact, they were closed. We had about 550 stores between them closed at one point. And the least locked-down market during this window of time was Japan, and by the way, has been the least locked-down throughout the whole of COVID. And that reflects the performance.
So the more locked-down a market is, then, obviously, if it's closed, that can have a negative impact on the business. But most of the time, the business trades somewhere in between. And when we're in a deeper lockdown, we get a big boost in delivery, and not always, very strong in carry-out. But as soon as we're less locked-down, by governments, then we start to see a return of carry-out. And so for most of the time, our business, and you've seen our like-for-likes in the last five months, we've been operating in that more transitional phase. Next slide, Nathan. I wanna take this opportunity. It's been quite an extraordinary period of for our franchisees, our team members, our executives.
I just really wanna thank everybody for how much care they've given to their communities, to their team members, to our customers, the extraordinary work, the agility that we've asked people to move at. You know, we've turned things on within hours and days and changed, you know, decade-long procedures for safety to go to a different level or a different need. And it's just been incredible to be a leader in this group and to watch our nine countries have rallied so much. Next slide, Nathan. On this slide, I wanna share these are the six pillars that have got us through to this point and will get us through on as we live with COVID.
I just want to particularly point out that top left-hand quadrant there 'cause I can take the rest as read is that, you know, something that we learned very early on, was that, you know, you would if you would've said to me pre-COVID, we're a tax-paying citizen in each country. We follow the laws of the land. Therefore, it's our right in each of those nine democracies to trade. But what we really quickly learned is that at any time while we're living with COVID, or something like this, it's, it's an absolute privilege to trade. And as a result of that, we need to continue, to be giving back to those in need around us with so many people underemployed or unemployed or businesses that are undertrading or not even trading.
If we are, then you will see that, we're not gonna hesitate to invest, to make sure that we're also being very generous at heart and, and we're encouraging our franchisees and supporting them accordingly to do so. Next slide. I'll just start now with the highlights. You know, one of the things, as you see the investment of AUD 14.1 million that we, we put back into our franchise network is that the net result of that is even with 550 stores closed at one point, we didn't lose a single franchisee to the system during COVID. So it's something we're very proud of. You know, when there was a lot of fear in the market, we shared that we would stand shoulder to shoulder. Each CEO was fully empowered to make decisions locally, whatever that was, and to do a lot of good.
And I think we built a lot of equity with our franchisees because of that. We added over 13,000 new jobs. We'll probably add at least another 10,000 new jobs this year, something that we think, you know, would be good for our communities. We've donated over 220,000 pizzas in that first period. We're still giving pizzas today. The frontline moves from health workers to underprivileged schools to, you know, potentially little sporting teams that are trying to get themselves started again out of lockdown and need support. And we're gonna continue to be generous while we live with COVID and beyond. And finally, we added at least 15 million pieces of PPE. Some of it funded by DPE and much of it funded by our franchisees to make sure that our business is safe. Next slide, Nathan.
If we come on to the financial results, you know, no change to how our numbers have been reported the last decade in that the engine of DPE is our online ordering platform. And it was no exception. You know, there was some that doubted, in the land of, the advent of aggregators that, whether or not we would be able to continue to grow. We said, "No, no, no. This is a tailwind for us. It is the driver of our business." You know, up 21.4%. We added, you know, AUD 415 million to our online platform, which then grew our network by 12.8%, or an additional AUD 370 million. I'm happy to say today that we were able to achieve an EBITDA growth of 7.3%. Our full-year dividend is up 3.3%, where we're paying a second-half dividend of AUD 0.526.
Richard is going to talk about the incredible free cash flow, which is up 90.6%, this year. Next slide, please. You know, we believe that we've had a strong performance in what is an extraordinary year. We really believe that we've been able to demonstrate the resilience of our five-year plan. You know, we gave a three-to-five-year outlook. We talked about all the way we intend to drive this business. I think all parts of our model were tested with our business partners, with our supply chain, with our franchisee relationships, with the working from home in a very digital business. I think that we put the business to test. In every case, I'm so proud to say that our partners and our franchisees and our team members delivered.
That gives us a lot of confidence, even though we're living with COVID, and we're gonna see flare-ups over the next one to three years. You know, we really feel that whatever gets thrown our way, we're ready for it. You know, we're gonna remain agile and embrace whatever comes our way. If you come with me on to slide nine, you can see that our same-store sales were within the range of the upper end of our outlook. Our new store growth, our organic store growth was just slightly behind. I think we highlighted that there was periods of time where even if we wanted to open stores, we couldn't. There was also some nervousness, obviously, in that March, April, early May period when certain countries it just didn't seem appropriate.
But we did continue to open stores, and we've had a really strong last three months. And we also are in our perfect range. If you come with me on to slide 10, most of this presentation I'm gonna show is red, but you know, I really wanna highlight the extraordinary growth here in Japan. In my 33 years, the weeks and months that a whole country of Japan has been able to deliver are numbers I've never seen. And that's both with the tailwind from the environment, but also with the way that the team were putting all of the pieces of the pillars that Josh and the group were putting in place. Then they just really went hard at it again. So you know, we're, it's not lost on us.
We're getting a lot of new customers here, and Josh will talk about, and how we're gonna go forward in Japan. If we go on to slide 11, you know, I love that, if you look at the last two years of that existing network, you'll notice that that's grown 12.6%. So, you know, we've, we've often been questioned on our fortressing strategy. We strongly believe in the fortressing strategy gives us a competitive advantage, especially in delivery as we get closer and closer and more efficient in our delivery times and our cost base as we get closer to that customer. So, you know, we-we're growing our, our existing stores, but then we've added nearly AUD 1 billion in new stores over this period of time. So we really feel the model's right, and it's gonna be more of the same for the years to come.
If you come with me on to slide 12, that whilst Japan was the hero, even with New Zealand closed for five weeks and France closed in various stages over a two-month period, we still were able to deliver network sales growth, if you look in that top left-hand quadrant, in both Europe and Australia and New Zealand. And then if you come with me on to slide 13, you can see there that we also invested in Europe and Australia and New Zealand. And of course, we were more affected by the closure in New Zealand and more affected by the closure in France. But even in Australia and other parts of Europe, we really did invest, in some cases even more generously than in hindsight we needed to be.
But there's no regrets with that because the relationship, the equity, the fear we removed, which has then propelled our franchisees where across the globe now nearly every franchise market, with the exception of some CBD stores, are trading at record profitability. So we felt it was the right investment. You can also see, in that top left-hand quadrant that DPE is a portfolio of nine countries. And it was only three short years ago on this very roadshow where I rightfully were challenged by some of our shareholders and analysts to say, "Do you regret buying Japan? Japan doesn't look like the rest of DPE. It's a low transaction, low-frequency market. You know, is it something that you're gonna regret?" And, coincidentally, it's seven years this week that we bought Japan.
You're gonna see today that in the near term, it's gonna become the biggest market for DPE. We're very proud to have it as part of our portfolio. If you come with me now onto slide 14, this we shared, that we were gonna try and do the best we possibly could, to break out the effects of COVID on our business. You can see that we invested about AUD 14.1 million. We did receive some government assistance. That was mostly in France and New Zealand. We wanted to break that out there. The net effect was something like AUD 8.2 million. Of course, we do need to disclaim that there's many examples, but that's as best as we could predict.
I think that, you know, the question that many shareholders and analysts will ask us is that, "Well, what's the ongoing?" And we don't, we absolutely can't be clean on that. What I can say right now is we're hardly giving any support, and we haven't for a little while now, with the exception of the CBD stores around the world. But please understand we won't hesitate to support our franchisees and team members if it's required in the coming year as we still live with COVID. So it's a little bit hard to say what the rest of the year looks like, but what I can share with you right now, there's nowhere near that support in the system.
If you come with me on to slide 15, and the reason that we don't need to give that much support is that for a one and only time because of the early effects of COVID, we've broken the business out into quarters in the second half. And we thought that was very important so that shareholders could see the run rate of the business. And you can see that basically, for the last nearly five months now, our same-store sales have ranged between 11% and 12%, and our total group sales has been just above 18%. And that is a number of months now, and that's what's led to the current strong profitability of our franchise network.
And so, you know, to make sure those results were delivered because of those investments at the epicenter period, and knowing that in our DNA now, we won't hesitate to do that again to make sure that when we're out of lockdowns, that our franchisees know that we stood side by side and that they are gonna perform well, which removes the fear, which we don't need in our system. So at this point in time, I'm gonna hand over to Richard Coney for our group financials.
Thank y ou, Don. Look, Nathan, if you could just move on to the next slide. As Don highlighted, our network sales were up 12.8%. But as you can see here, our revenue is actually up 33.8%.
Most of this was actually just the structural changes we've made to our Australian warehouse and distribution process in the first half. But also, a huge contributor, obviously, was the extraordinary comparable store sales growth that we're getting in Japan, driving up our revenue. Our underlying NPAT growth up AUD 4.6 million or 3.3%, noting, at a statutory level, we were up 19.5%. EPS growth, up 2.7%, a slight dilution as a result of share options issued during the year. And the full-year dividend, we're maintaining up 3.3%, our normal 70% payout ratio, 100% fully franked. Just moving to slide 18. At a group level, we were up 7.3% EBITDA and 3.2% in constant currency.
With Europe trading strongly coming into the second half when we were up 17%, the high levels of COVID-19 restrictions has resulted in a small decline in profits for the full year on a constant currency basis. As we've highlighted, France was particularly challenged with store closures and the shutdown of our commissary and distribution center during that time. ANZ EBITDA growth was down with profit declines due to COVID-related support we provided our stores. Of course, the full closure of our stores in New Zealand for five weeks. Japan, well, record sales growth in Q4 has translated into EBITDA growth of 42.3%. Because we operate such a large corporate store business with over 360 stores, this enhanced our leverage in addition to the 74 new stores which we opened during the period. Just turn to slide 19.
This is our normal reconciliation of statutory to underlying. As you can see this year, our non-recurring costs were down, from AUD 25.3 million last year to AUD 7.1 million this year, which is positive. Moving to slide 20, we've given a little bit more detail here, but the key point here is you can see that our Germany conversion is now complete, with the Hallo acquisition. And we've managed to come in full non-recurring costs for the full three years of AUD 46.7 million, which is inside our original guidance that we gave to the market when before we purchased the business. Moving to slide 21, our group cash flow. As you can see, we've had a significant benefit in working capital. And primarily this was the result of very high sales in Japan. It's driving up our working capital.
If those sales continue, that, you know, we'll keep that benefit. We also got some extended payment terms from some of our larger suppliers in Europe specific to COVID-19, but they will be timing and will reverse in the next half. This has resulted in our, I believe, our record cash conversion of 113.5% versus prior year of 98.1%, which was already strong. Our proceeds from sales were up, and our loan book continues to recycle, predominantly in Japan. This resulted in our free cash flow up 90.6% or AUD 161.8 million. Moving to the next slide. In this slide, we've given some more detail on our investing in terms of our CapEx this year was AUD 97.4 million at the higher end of our guidance.
Points to note here is, you know, we've got CapEx which we know will recycle over time at AUD 32.5 million. This is one-third of our total CapEx, which will come back to us. And these include investments in corporate stores, franchisee loans, and acquisitions of franchisees in Europe, ANZ predominantly. We continue to invest in digital, up AUD 18 million. And as you can see, our stay in business CapEx is relatively small proportionally at AUD 18.2 million, less than 20% of our total CapEx. Other investments this year included the new opening of our commissary and head office in the latter part of the year in the Netherlands. If we now move to slide 23, the group balance sheet, probably the only item really worth highlighting here is the increase in our cash.
As you can see, this is up AUD 144 million, predominantly a result of our strong operating cash flows in that last couple of months. But also, we did draw down on some debt in order to increase our group's liquidity during the peaks of the COVID-19 when things were looking quite challenging. Moving to slide 24, our group key financial ratios. As you can see, our return on capital continues to be strong. And you can see our net debt, which I'll talk about next, has reduced down by AUD 69.8 million. Moving to slide 25. This slide I've put together just this year as a result of COVID, and then providing a lot more detail on our liquidity and also our balance sheet strength.
Some key points to highlight here is that pre-COVID, if you look to the table to the far right in the top there, you can see that pre-COVID, our cash and undrawn debt facilities were AUD 330 million. Post-COVID, and now coming into June 30, we're now sitting at AUD 391.7 million. Also worth noting is we've got more than two years remaining on our committed debt facilities. And our net leverage ratio, as you can see, from FY19 through to FY20, we've gone from 1.8 x now sitting at 1.5 x. So as you can see, our balance sheet is in a very good state to support the business through some of these challenging times. I'll now pass you over to André, who will talk a little bit more in detail about Europe. Thank you.
Thanks, Richard. And good morning to you all. If I can go to the next slide, Nathan, I'm very pleased to be able to present a 5.1% increase in our network sales in Europe, obviously despite the temporary closure of the system in France, showing that we had a really good first half year and a really good start of this calendar year. And especially during the COVID time, we had an increase in delivery sales in all our markets that were still trading, while maintaining or even better increasing our service levels, resulting in lower delivery times and better consumer scores, which we measure in our NPS scores. The increase in delivery always also helped us with creating even more online sales through our One Digital platform.
And as you can see in the bottom right graph, the sales increase came from both existing stores, the existing network as the new network, which is a very pleasing situation to be in. If I can take you to slide 28, shedding a little bit more light on our store openings, as Don mentioned, from March on, it was tough to open stores, especially because we couldn't get any permits in anymore. Local governments were closed. No one was at the office. And normal windows that we had for receiving permits were massively delayed. And I'm still pleased with the record number of store openings in Europe, although it's only one more than our previous record.
Very pleased to say that there were no cancellations in store openings, just delays and expecting a record number of store openings again this year. The good thing about the Benelux, it passed the 400-store mark, with over 300 stores now in the Netherlands and over 100 stores in Belgium, cementing their number one position in pizza. France opened their 400th store as well in this year and growing fast to 500 stores. If I can go to the next slide, slide 29, that is. I'll let the points speak for themselves mainly and take the opportunity to introduce Stoffel Thijs, our CEO for Germany, and Andrew Bradley, our CEO for France, to add some color to their performances in Germany and France respectively. I'll first hand over to Stoffel.
Thank you, André. Good morning to all. Thank you for joining us. As you remember, we set up a three-step approach to our conversion in Germany. First step was the physical conversion of the stores. Second step was getting High Volume Mentality in. The third step was to get organic store growth going. I'm very proud to announce that we've had a strong year in which HVM, High Volume Mentality, has been paying off big time. Record sales have led to record profits at store level. One of the things that we've introduced that's been very successful for us is called the Domino's Duo. It means that every customer can have the second pizza for EUR 2, either delivered or for carry-out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
We've been advertising this on national television, which has led to our aided brand awareness growing from 33% to over 50% today, which on one side shows you the strengths of the strategy and on the other side shows you what lies ahead of us in opportunity. What I'm extremely proud of is that our managers and franchisees during these times, these boom times, have been able to reduce our delivery times to a faster service to the customers at the door, which means that we can convert all of those new customers to our business into regulars for the future. And with that, I'd like to hand over to Andrew Bradley to talk about France.
Thanks so much, Stoffel, and good morning to everybody. Just to give you a little bit of insight of how things have been here in France these last 12 months. Really, I think the arrival of COVID was a big disappointment to the whole team in France because we were well on track to have one of our best years ever and then on March the 16th, the government made a famous TV presentation where they just basically told everybody to stay at home, and it was a very strong message, which caused quite an amount of confusion and fear within the public. I think the impact was more than the government expected, and in that period there was, as I said, a lot of confusion, and we had to make a very difficult decision to close the network.
And we did that with a real feeling of people first. We had to take care of our franchisees, our store staff, and also our customers. We felt we needed to press on the pause button here to give ourselves the time to get organized to work in this new environment, which is what we did. We spent the next two weeks. Then we really saw, as Don mentioned earlier, the impact of working in an international network. We were able to take best practices from elsewhere within the group and put into place measures where we could trade safely in the new environment. I think those work methods were widely appreciated by the franchisees and by our customers, which meant we could, two weeks after we closed down, start to reopen stores.
By the end of April, we'd got open 75% of the network. By the end of May, we were almost back to 100% of the network. I think the positive impact of doing that meant that we came through this whole challenge very strongly with the franchisees. I think in many cases, it reinforced our attachment with them. It also showed them the strength of the Domino's model. The store openings was, we did get open 21 new stores before the shutdown. Obviously, after that, everything went on pause. What is really encouraging is that those store openings which were planned, none were canceled. In fact, those will be taking place in the next few weeks and months. It gives us a good pipeline for the next few months. Very positive in that respect.
We'll come back to looking forward as to the future trading conditions a little bit later in the presentation. So, with that, I'll hand back to you, André. Yeah.
Thank you very much, Andrew. Thank you, Stoffel. Two very different stories here in Europe from two of our major countries here. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the teams in the local markets for their agility and their hard work to take on all the challenges we had in the different markets. A little bit about the Benelux. Benelux had another great year in store openings and also in sales, but was affected a little bit more because of the high carry-out percentage we have in the Benelux. Very value-conscious customers that like to pick up pizzas at a great price.
Obviously, pickup was very much affected by the government mandate to stay at home as much as we could. Then I'll go to the next slide, talking about our new supply chain center in the Netherlands, which actually is a state-of-the-art facility. We just want to make sure that we have the necessary business continuity. We're also built something that is way more capable of handling the volumes and the growth for the future. With that, I'd like to hand over to Nick to talk about Australia and New Zealand.
Thank you, André. Good morning, everybody. If you move with me now on to slide 32, I'll take this one as largely read, but just want to point out strong network sales growth of 4.1% driven by exceptional delivery growth in digital. And inside of that result, you're seeing both our existing stores and new stores benefiting from that growth. If you move with me now on to slide 33, we only opened 10 stores for the half. And like I mentioned in the last investor catch-up call, we did have that; we were anticipating that. And it wasn't a change in strategy so much as a pause in strategy. We've already opened five stores so far this half. And we're well and truly back on strategy in that regard.
If you look down at the bottom, left-hand corner there, you can see, we've had a meaningful lift in franchisees with one store- two stores. And in large part, that's due to the Manager-to-Franchise program. And very pleased with that group of managers who took the step from the step as manager to become franchisees for the first time now with the balance sheets and the profitability to expand to a second store. And I really expect we'll see that growth continue for that cohort. If you move now on to slide 34, ANZ performance, we saw the resilience and capability of what a franchise network really can do.
I think it's one thing, and we've already discussed earlier in the presentation the benefit of being part of a large global network to get insights and be able to move strategy very quickly. It's quite another to be able to execute that at a high level on the front line when you're talking about hundreds of stores and tens of thousands of team members, and our franchisees did an incredible job of staying in lockstep with us there. Our network sales did grow despite a closure in New Zealand and customer movements affecting growth overall, and we did invest meaningfully in supporting our franchisees through those varied and volatile conditions.
We saw our customers really respond well to a lot of our operational and product initiatives, the refreshed New Yorker campaign, which brought a lot of a bit of escapism back into our lives. The half-and-half promotion more recently really resonating well, and we have a great pipeline going forward. Our New Zealand business did reopen very strongly after the closure there. I'm pleased to report our franchisees had a record profitability year. In large part, that was due to the performance in the last few months. But also, you know, when taking into consideration any benefits we got from governments was largely in New Zealand where that business was closed. In Australia, a very small number of franchisees, around 10, getting any benefit like JobKeeper.
What you're seeing there is really the structural benefits of the investment our franchisees have made in expanding their networks and fortressing their territories and being able to leverage what is one of the biggest efficiencies of doing that, getting more stores closer to customers. When you're seeing exceptional delivery growth, that's exceptionally efficient delivery growth too because we're so close to those customers. Also, you know, really pleased to see how the team rallied toward making sure that we were feeding the front line and doing good. We've given away over 50,000 pizzas and still counting and working with our registered charity, Give for Good. I really want to thank our team members, our franchisees, and the team here at head office for all their hard work in this period. I'm going to hand over now to Josh to talk on Japan.
Thanks, Nick. Okay. If you come with me on, onto page 36, you know, overall really pleasing result for Japan. I'm going to assume that this is read. But one thing to note on this slide is really the contribution of sales and new stores. And, you know, whilst we're not at critical mass, as previously discussed, we are seeing the early effects of territory and prefectural brand brand penetration. You know, and suffice to say, we've got a lot more TV. We spoke about this at the recent roadshow. Digital marketing is returning more than ever and, and more print in the Benelux, which is a big driver of new customers. And of course, brand growth. Come with me now to page 37, region in focus. A couple of notable results here.
Despite the tailwinds through COVID, we believe, well, we continue to build stores and really found a way to do this, through very strict planning through our construction partners has really sent a signal to the business internally and externally that we're not deviating from our strategy and we'll continue to build stores and get closer to the customer. Now, that said, really encouraging result, which really points, I believe, to the health of the system is the growth in franchisees investing back. Now, if you look at the three, three to five store franchisees, the growth this year is 35%. And even if you look at our six or more franchise stores, we have a growth of 6.8%. We've now got over 300 franchise stores, and it represents about 46% of the system. And also another key point to note on this slide is the population per store.
This represents about 60,000 households-80,000 households per store, which really shows the runway for future store growth in Japan. Now, let's go to slide 38. Okay. Japan performance, you know, our performance was accelerated by some of the market-based COVID conditions. It really didn't surprise us. More importantly, to iterate, it isn't luck that we're able to capture. Overall, we weren't that surprised. We've actually been preparing for critical mass, you know, since DPE acquired the market. In fact, you know, we've actually seen quite counterintuitively the best operations we've ever seen, with metrics demonstrating strong performances across both franchise and corporate.
To give you some further detail, our record result was aided by a lot of the strategic decisions, you know, through Barbell Pricing, which I've spoken about at length, better technology platforms, and of course, the expanded store footprint, by fortressing the metropolitan markets. As a result, you know, our network sales did surge to record customer levels. You know, and customers were really looking for everyday meal options to replace dining options because many of those were actually closed, but also mainly because of our new value proposition that we launched, you know, in June, which is really producing great results for us, which I'll talk about shortly. You know, we've got a larger store network. In fact, we've had to hire over 8,000 people in Japan to meet the demand.
And that, in turn, you know, really produced some enormous efficiency across the business in terms of operations. And customers rewarded us with some great NPS results, in fact, some of our highest in history. Of course, this dropped through the bottom line, not only for DPJ, but also for store unit economics. You know, we, you know, across both franchise and corporate, we really set some new benchmarks. And we're building a new foundation for accelerated expansion, which I can assure you has already started. Now, finally, just one thing to note, DPE, upon buying the market, placed enormous focus on growing female talent within the business. And really, pleased to report that our two incredible female managers have been recognized in Japan, both for DPE Manager of the Y ear, but also internationally as DPZ International Manager of the Year. That's my time.
Over to you, Don, for the updated outlook.
Thank you very much, Josh. I just want to acknowledge all of the CEOs on the call. We obviously, we've got some of our European team here that are very early in the morning. The way that each of these CEOs drove the business during COVID and today, the agility that they've all acted independently in their markets with the best practice sharing has been very impressive to be part of the team. If you come with me on to slide 40, one of the things that helps guide us at DPE is that, while none of us have a crystal ball, our internal mindset is that we believe we'll be living with COVID for something like 18 months- 36 months.
That's quite an important insight into the outlook inside the business because it means that we're able to take long-term strategic decisions as we now think very heavily about market share, about the ability to open more stores, invest in digital media, strengthening our franchisee base with their strong profitability right now. And in the event of any COVID flare-ups, we're standing side by side. We will support because we know that, you know, outside of each of those windows, the environment is appropriate for the Domino's model that we've been investing in for more than a decade with technology.
So, you know, we believe we are a business in the right system with the right team, with the right franchisees, with the right mindset, to really, really, do the right thing by our communities, continue to have a positive effect on the economies that we operate in with employment. And we will build this business. We're taking that perspective, knowing that, you know, of course, hope isn't a strategy for us. And of course, we would all hope that COVID could leave the world sooner. But at least that's what grounds us in this business to make the decisions that we're making today. If you come with me now on to slide 41, we talk about the agility and the way that we continue to adapt in this new environment.
I've highlighted earlier that one of the areas of weakness for our business when we get into a deeper lockdown is the reduction in our carry-out business. This is, you know, one of the ways that we intend to go after that business: what we call Car Park Delivery. So what is Car Park Delivery? Basically, you know, as the company that leads in delivery with delivery times, you know, to homes and to offices, we're now going to be embracing using carry-out pricing. We offer more or less a concierge service so that when you arrive at our stores with pickup pricing, we will do use a zero-contact process to place those pizzas into your vehicle where you want them placed.
Well, I'm so proud of the team that, within seven days, you know, we've been working on this for a number of years. We've also watched the parent in the U.S. launch it recently, and they've commented about it as a service. But the team rallied really quickly as soon as Melbourne, you know, came out of nowhere once again. And within seven days, we're now offering in the majority of stores in Melbourne Car Park Delivery. We're also testing it in New Zealand and various other parts of the world. And this will be a major part of our program in the years to come. So expect some new advertising for that. And I do have a TV commercial, which we brought to market within days for the Melbourne market. Over to you, Nathan.
At Domino's, we're open day and night, delivering till late and doing pickup till 7:30 P.M. Selected stores also offer Car Park Delivery till 7:30 P.M. Just pull up, check in, and we'll deliver to your car for no extra charge at Domino's.
So important, continuing very, very important, that the only hands that will ever touch your pizza when they leave our ovens will be your own. And also making sure that we continue to keep value front and center. You know, we're not charging any extra for that service. And it keeps our consumers safer. So at this point in time, I'm going to hand over to André again.
Thank you, Don. Looking forward for Europe. Like I said, and Don mentioned before, we're expected to open an even higher number of stores in the next year in Europe, obviously helped by some of the stores that were supposed to have reopened last year. But the pipeline looks really strong, and I'm expecting a new record store openings. We're still seeing European bigger cities with large CBDs continue to reflect some COVID issues because of lack of tourists, lack of visitors, lack of students at the end of the academic year, and some closed businesses that are still working at home. And obviously, we're seeing some flare-ups in bigger cities like Paris and Amsterdam and Antwerp, where there's new restrictions that affect our business.
We will continue to grow our delivery share, but with things like Car Park Delivery, which in some markets in Europe will look different. It's not just Car Park Delivery, but even walk-by and people coming on bike. We will just go outside. People don't have to go into the store. So the fear of getting contaminated in the store will be gone. And it's a lot easier if you rock up on your bike with your kid on the back of the bike. You don't have to carry the kid with you in the store. You just stay outside, and we'll bring you the pizza to you. We think we can drive pickup sales through our version of Car Park Delivery. And let me pass over to Stoffel to comment on Germany looking forward.
Thanks, André. So, as I said before, we've arrived at step three of our conversion, the organic growth. On the back of store profits booming, we see an increased appetite from franchisees in opening new stores. The five stores that we've opened to date, and the strong pipeline we see ahead of us makes us confident that we'll deliver on step three of our conversion plan. In the year to come, we'll be doubling down on a proven successful strategy, being our Domino's Duo on television. We'll increase our presence on television by about threefold. And next to that, DP Germany will be investing into their training platforms to guide all the franchisees and our managers to be able to handle the extra stores that are going to come online and the extra volume that we're going to handle in our current stores.
With those two things in play, I'm confident on the next year to be another great one for Domino's Pizza in Germany, and with that, I'll hand over to Andrew Bradley to talk about France.
Yeah, thanks very much, Stoffel. As André mentioned, yeah, still challenges in the big cities, particularly Paris, central Paris, which suffers from the double hit of CBD, but also tourism. France, one of the biggest, world's biggest tourist attractions and Paris particularly. So there's some challenges there, some headwinds in the biggest cities. In the meantime, we're keeping our finger on the pulse with consumer attitude in this new environment, which we're working and adapting our range and our offers to that, to make sure that we stay very pertinent in this new environment. And then in particular, as you see on the slide, we opened our 400th store this year in the last financial year and now accelerating towards 500 stores with existing franchisees who are, we have a very good list of stores in preparation.
As I said, some of those were carryovers from last year, but very good pipeline there. Also just bringing through our own Emerging Leaders system, which is an important system for us, bringing through young people who've been working in our stores as managers or supervisors and helping them, accompanying them to become franchisees for the future. And that is really going to be. We've got a record number of people wanting to enter that process at the moment. That really will be another of our sources of new franchisees as we rush towards this target of 500 stores with the impact that has as well on media spend, which, the tipping point of really getting to a much more media as we add these extra stores.
So if you like, we're in an environment, as with everybody else, of relatively little visibility at the moment. But we think we're very well equipped and with the experience we've had in the last few months, and the adjustments we're making, as I said, to consumer evolution, very confident for the future and having a good year this year. Even with this lack of visibility, we can deal with that. With that, I will hand back to you, André.
Yeah, thanks, Andrew. On the Benelux, we will rebuild the carry-out sales by technology, but also by offering great value for our customers. On Denmark, lastly, looking forward, we had a great year in building the brand based on operations, one of the best metrics on operations in Europe, in Denmark currently.
And now we're going to the next phase where we add the Domino's DPE technology. We'll roll out One Digital later this year, which will give us another layer to talk to the customers and do what we do very well in building our digital sales, and creating a better experience for the customer. And with that, I'll hand over to Nick.
Thank you, André. If we move on to slide 43, ANZ looking forward, the recent events in Melbourne and Auckland have definitely shown us that we can expect this variability to continue and that, while we have these localized restrictions, we do see massive changes in trade and trade patterns. Our suburban stores are performing quite strongly as is consistent with the rest of the business. However, the CBD stores is still requiring some support. Our operations and menu innovations are delivering pleasing results. Car Park Delivery, as you've seen rolled out in Melbourne in the last few weeks, is showing some pleasing results. I really believe that is another strong layer of growth for the business going forward. We get a lot of questions around, well, what does it mean for margins and what is our expectation on that?
And, it's hard to give really clear guidance other than to say that strong network sales should deliver strong margins and returning back to, you know, margins that we would have historically have. But again, that depends on those sales coming through. And that's largely in part due to those lockdowns and when and how they happen. Our execution and how we get to those sales, you know, is about executing for the customer and staying clear on the things that we know resonate, which is our customers want even more strong value. They want an amazing product, and they want it in their hands quickly and safely. And we have a lot of platforms and promos really focused in and around that.
And we're seeing a great lift in franchisees' interest in expanding their networks, both into our corporate network and taking some of those stores from our portfolio, but opening new stores as well. And of course, we'll continue a focus on doing good as well as we start to do well into this period. And, in fact, today in Auckland, all stores have banded together, donating 50 cents from every pizza sold to local food banks. And again, just another example of the team rallying behind feeding the need there, which is amazing. So I'll hand now over to Josh back on Japan. Thank you.
Thanks, Nick. I guess the question is, how do we retain all these customers? I guess what we won't do is allow for short-termism, which assumes it's just COVID. You know, it's really not just COVID. It's a lot of things happen through the half as well as this, as well as COVID. Moreover, it's about our pricing, our brand promotion strategy, along with the operational execution that is seeing more and more customers, new customers and existing customers come back to us more often. You know, we've made a couple of really big bold moves through COVID, which two of them has really removed some of the long-standing tensions we've had, you know, with our single cheese pizza consumers in the business.
The two key moves, the first being we've removed all delivery fees or minimum delivery quotas, which has showed a really positive result on growing delivery orders across our lunch and late-night businesses. The second big move is the launch of Half-Price Carryout. Many of you might know we've had a BOGO, buy one get one free layer in our business. We've now relaunched under the Half-Price Carryout, which allows for single pizza consumers to come to us with value and three and five and seven pizza consumers to come and enjoy our brand and have access to it ultimately. Over the next six to 12 months, we will continue to invest in these structural layers of our business.
And coupled with our continual focus of Project 3TEN, these will really continue to differentiate us against all the other restaurants and QSRs in the sector in Japan. We expect to continue to open stores, refranchise stores, including our corporate store network. One thing we mentioned some time ago that, you know, franchisees really like corporates like us to open the stores and then to buy them off us as a turnkey solution. So we'll continue that process. And just as a side note, we will be celebrating our 35th year in the business. And we're also going to be celebrating our 700th store this half as well, which far exceeds the original store plan upon acquisition of the business in Japan. We can now see a pathway to 1,500 stores by, you know, between 2030 and 2032. But more on this shortly.
I'm going to hand you back to Don now. So over to you, Don.
Thank you, Josh. If you come with me now onto slide 45 and continuing the conversation that Josh just announced there, that pre-COVID, we were already in this half looking at our numbers to upgrade the Japanese business. Please know that that 1,500 stores is properly mathematically worked out with all of our data. You know, clearly Japan in the near term is going to become the biggest business of DPE. And that means that we're upgrading our group outlook now to the 5,550 stores. I will note that we haven't achieved the growth we thought we would achieve in the last couple of years, largely in France and Germany, be it that we're really happy with the performance of those businesses. We are extending the Europe outlook by three years to give us that little bit more realistic space for you, our shareholders.
But, you know, when we look at this year, you can expect all things given equal, depending on any length of lockdowns. But you will see that the stores we should have opened last year are flowing into this year. And you've seen that with the 24 new stores already opened. And then we already had stores in the pipeline. So this will be a strong year aided by that extra tailwind of what wasn't opened last year. It's also not lost on our business that we do service 340 million population between the nine countries. You know, it's bigger than the U.S. GDP only slightly than the U.S. and bigger than China between those countries, mathematics before COVID, of course. But, you know, we're, it's not lost on the opportunity.
Of course, we're still going to be looking and pursuing for additional geographies in the years to come, all in Domino's. If you come with me now onto slide 46, our outlook isn't changed. This is a three-to-five-year outlook. So while we're in this period where we're obviously experiencing quite solid trading, we want to continue to stick with rather than switching and changing and giving guidance. We like the idea of taking shareholders on the longer picture here of the longer business strategy. We're quite comfortable that we can achieve that 3%-6% same-store sales, organic growth of 7%-9%. Either one of those could be a little bit more lumpy in favor of this year with the backup of stores and obviously the strong trading currently.
If you come with me now onto slide 47, each of our regions has made significant progress this year to enhance the sustainability in ESG, and to do good in our communities. And our mantra at the beginning of COVID was to do good, not well. Our mantra today is to do good and well, as we have an obligation to our shareholders, to our team members, to our franchisees with the model that we've all been investing in and working so hard for so long. Really, the metrics that were driving growth in retail have simply accelerated in this window. In fact, maybe, from what we can tell, maybe the future has been brought forward three years of what would have happened anyway. But as we continue to do good and well, I want to talk about, you know, giving isn't only around COVID.
It's been our model, in all environments where things can get tough. And that was reflected during the bushfires in Australia. I mean, it's been quite an extraordinary year if you look at the financial year period for the Australian business, the Australian economy and the things that have affected it. If we look at the energy savings, I'm proud to say that 50% of all deliveries in France are currently delivered by an electric vehicle. 30% of all vehicles, sorry, all deliveries in Germany are delivered electrically. And this is another metric. 1.7 million deliveries were done in Australia last year electrically, versus 1.5 million the year before. And that's just going to continue to growth. And we're setting targets and we'll talk more about that. And you'll be able to observe more of that in our annual report.
Also worth noting in this last financial year that we introduced water-saving devices into 425 schools in Japan that saved 60 megaliters on an annualized basis for Japan in water. So one of our five values is to do the right thing because it's simply the right thing to do. And you're going to see more and more of that as we go forward. So in conclusion, probably the best way I can frame this upfront is that we're really optimistic about our business and our business model and what we've been investing in in all the years that have preceded this. But at the same time, we are realistic about the world that we operate in, that while COVID is active, there is always the opportunity that we could see even a market close.
If it's, if a market's closed before a market closes again. But as you've seen from our results, we think that the system resilience, our approach to the business, of investing on either side of that, means that we think we're building a robust business that's going to gain a lot of market share in the years to come. So with that in mind, despite the challenges that we faced with COVID, we've delivered a record profit year for you, our shareholders. We've continued to trade in the COVID world, with that mindset that it's a privilege to trade. You know, it's very easy to get carried away with our model. But the reality is it's a privilege.
And there's a number of different parties from the government, from our communities, our team members, you know, and right now in Melbourne, you know, making sure that we're continuing to prove to our team members and their families that we're going to do everything to keep them safe so that they can keep our customers more safe, by keeping our customers at home and that we get to deliver them a treat. You know, pizza is a family treat. You can't live off supermarket food and cooking forever. Really, mentally, getting that other experience is a positive. And, and, you know, pizza has been a product to bring people closer. And that's very much our purpose. The effects on our communities will remain uncertain and subject to rapid change. And we won't be immune to that.
However, we are confident that we do have the right product to even in our most penetrated markets with the right model, with the right people for the short and long term as we live with COVID. We take perspective that could be 18 months- 36 months internally. We intend to build on our long-term strategy. Now is a time to invest in our people, invest in our communities, invest in the brand, and invest in our future. I think we experienced COVID that bringing our purpose and values to life, you know, all of the muscle memory in the business is not something you can create in a day. The culture of Domino's and the way we've been able to act through our purpose and values really came alive in this moment. Our franchisees and team members have been incredibly agile.
We don't expect that to be every day, but every now and then there is a moment as we saw at the beginning of COVID and as we've seen with the rise so quickly in Melbourne and in New Zealand. You know, straight into charitable at heart this week in Auckland, we're 50 cents for the whole week. We're going to be giving to the food bank. You know, thank you, Nick and Cam, for doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do and supporting our Zero Contact Delivery processes. We think we'll continue to refine and get better and better as we take a refining approach to that.
And now the introduction of also our Car Park Delivery, where we think is going to be a well, we are going to invest a lot behind that platform in the 12 months. And Allan, our from the Australian business is producing some pretty cool TV commercials right now. And I can't wait to bring them to life. You know, we challenge each of our teams to be bold and creative at a time like this. And I know that all of the CEOs here are just incredibly proud of the work that we are being bold and creative. A digital delivery is expected to be the engine. It has been the engine the last decade. It will continue to be the engine. You know, you can expect some significant digital growth numbers this year.
Adding Car Park Delivery, by the way, adds to that because a Car Park Delivery means that we get some of our analog customers onto our platform. And it's very profitable for our franchisees because we go through a digital platform. We now build a relationship with the customer. And we do actually get a higher ticket compensating for the cost of that concierge service. Our balance sheet is strong and as is our cash flow. And the balance sheets of our franchisees remain strong. And that means that we will be able to lean in and deliver strong growth when markets are able to continue to trade. A medium-term opportunity is to grow sales and open more stores is simply unwavering. I hope you can hear from us.
And it continues to be our priority that we will always put the safety of our customers and our team members first and then our communities. So at that point in time, I now look forward to answering, and the team look forward to answering any of your questions. And thank you very much for listening.
Thank you, Don. We have a number of questions that have been launched via the chat function, also via email. So we'll do our best to get through all of them. The first one comes from Aryan at UBS. I note Aryan has asked a question about ANZ margins, which I think Nick has answered in the presentation. So we'll move on to how do we think about franchisee profitability of delivery versus carryout, both in terms of margins and dollar profit?
And also at the same time, Andrew McLennan from Goldman has asked, noting that DPG's view is that carryout customers are different to delivery and therefore the rebuild and carryout's going to be incremental. So we've seen the same trend. So perhaps, Don, if you could start by talking about that, carryout versus delivery component.
Yeah, so from a macro point of view, we absolutely believe that the majority of carryout customers are in a normal environment different to delivery customers. And I say in a normal environment. As soon as we see more intense lockdowns, some of those customers will convert to delivery, but not all. As we said, we do lose some of them. The way we build our model at Domino's is that we build very similar profitability. In other words, the cost of delivery is built into delivery, and we get a bigger basket there. But we're really agnostic. The biggest driver of profitability for our unit economics is same-store sales. So whether we get a big boom in carryout or we get a big boom in delivery, we're agnostic. It's what does the customer want?
And I know that question was shaped a little bit around Australia. So I might hand over to Nick to add a bit of color from an Australian perspective.
Yeah. Thanks, Don. So, I think, yeah, it's broadly been covered off, but also to note, you know, we're still a very large carryout business here in Australia. And so when we do see these big lifts in deliveries, you know, often in those very lockdown environments, you don't see quite enough of that to offset the pickup or the carryout sales that we're losing. And, you know, that's why we're really focused around things like Car Park Delivery, giving our customers a safer, better way to interact with us, and still get the value of carryout. And I'm really enthusiastic about how that is going to play out as another layer in the business.
Thanks, Nick.
Thank you. A question from Shaun Cousins on Germany, being called out as an area of strength in same-store sales. I know the answer to this one, Shaun, is asking for whether we can break out the rate of SSS growth for Germany particularly, or give some extra color around that. Also at the same time, we've received a question from Grant Saligari on Germany, just saying that the minority interest showing profit increase in Germany was low. And why was that given the network sales growth has been strong and franchisees achieved record profitability?
Yes. So thank you. Yeah, we don't break that into the country. So I'm sorry that we can't do that, Shaun. But it was the second strongest part of our business, you see, in Japan. So Germany, you know, when we look at those two countries, now are 210 million population and the two biggest same-store sales markets. And, and so that, that's all I can say. It was a strong double-digit number. I, I will hand over to the second part of the question to Richard and then back to Stoffel to close out some comments as well on Germany. But Richard, you can talk to.
Yeah. So, actually, I think the DPG results, they talked about the franchising segment was down. And this was predominantly due to with the strong trading, we did have very strong profits in Germany. But in addition, we did provide a lot of COVID-related support. And that was supporting our franchisees with all sorts of, you know, initiatives and a lot around the PPE that we're supplying to stores. And perhaps Stoffel can touch a little bit more on that. But fundamentally, if you remove that, the profit was strong, but COVID-related costs.
Over to you, Stoffel.
Yeah. Thank you. Sorry, my connection just broke up. So Nathan, could you repeat the second part of the question?
Yeah. The second part of the question just related to that profitability, just the, you know, and I think Richard's perhaps answered that in terms of why that, you know, the strong sales growth hasn't necessarily converted into the profit in Germany. Perhaps, you know, Stoffel, you can sort of, you know, reconcile. You obviously you've got very strong same-store sales growth in Germany, and that there is still some support needed there as to, you know, how the conditions are on the ground.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. So we're building, we're building a skyscraper in Germany. And the, the profits will flow through when we hit critical mass. And today, even though we're at 300+ stores in Germany, it's still the tip of the iceberg. It's still such a little, a small number on the size of the business will be in the future. And that's why we're investing a lot into people, into, customers, into franchisees. And so are our franchisees on their, on their end to build the business, which will be in the future. Yes, Fran, profits are growing, but, there's a lot of money being reinvested into the business today.
Yeah, and the other thing that's worth noting is that we have the royalty increases year on year back to DPZ because that was part of our partnership in there. But you should know as shareholders that Germany now have the highest average unit sales and came on at the lowest, so it has been extraordinary, so yeah, with the when we acquired those businesses, so the conversions have gone well, and that brings a lot of positivity and support from the franchisees. Back to you, Nathan.
Thank you, Don. A question from Ross. There's been significant growth in Australia with restaurant delivery aggregator apps. And just wondering how many orders are coming through the aggregators in ANZ now and how does that impact on margins?
Over to you, Nick, on that.
Yeah. Well, as we stated before, and our position on profitability in aggregators hasn't changed. It's, it is a profitable order at a store level. And that's largely because the pricing model is different. And, you know, the cost of acquisition, you know, is included in the order, whereas we would have to pay that additionally when, you know, we use another platform that's not our own, for example, Google Search or Facebook or whatever. In terms of the volume of aggregator orders coming through, a lot of variability, obviously. You've seen that be more meaningful in those CBD locations as there's less competition open and trading, but then less meaningful as you get out into the regional and suburban areas. But we don't break it out specifically.
Okay. Thanks, Nick. A question from Craig Woolford, just a couple around Japan. Has Japan continued its outperformance during the first seven weeks? We've had some other questions in terms of just giving some more breakdown of the year-to-date trading update. And just on Japan, and perhaps more broadly, how we calculate the net benefit, the AUD 24.8 million net benefit, from that slide 14.
Yes, so I'll hand over to Josh to talk about same-store sales. It's still the leader in our group, but not quite as it was in that last quarter.
Over to you, Josh.
Sure. So in terms of the first seven weeks, yeah, look, it's strong sales. Strong same-store sales continues. As Don said, not as strong as what we've seen over the last half. But look, we're continuously a tailwind. But we more think it's to do with our platforms. And you know, these structural pricing moves that we made are really producing some strong results for us now.
Thank you, Josh. Sorry, Nathan. I was too busy thinking of the first question. The second question was around slide 14.
Yes. Just in terms of just giving an assessment of how, and perhaps more broadly, how we calculate that benefit, which is that middle part of slide 14. Obviously, the costs are quite clear and the government assistance is quite clear.
Yeah.
But that, that middle part.
Over to you, Richard. Yep. That's a good one.
Yeah. Yeah. So it was reasonably straightforward for us, but we've taken a fairly high-level assumption that pre-COVID we were coming in on track to deliver our budget. And therefore, all we've really done is overlay what we'd budgeted for those, you know, three, four months of the COVID period versus what we ended up achieving. So from our perspective, that and we've highlighted that in the footnotes of the slide. But yeah, it's as simple as that. So you know, we were tracking. The whole group was on track pre-COVID to deliver our budget. And then obviously we had the impacts of COVID in the individual markets. And obviously Japan outperformed us and got those tailwinds from COVID.
Thanks, Richard.
Thank you. We've had a couple of questions in terms of JobKeeper. Ross has asked how many stores will be receiving JobKeeper 2.0 post-September. Obviously, that's an Australian-related question. The other question was from Michael in terms of we've broken out the government assistance that DPE has received. But is there a quantum of assistance that the stores themselves have received?
Yeah. I can talk to the bigger group. Yeah. So, as Nick said, from JobKeeper perspective in Australia, there were around 10 franchisees that got it in that first. So, you know, that's quite small in the relative to 300 franchisees as a group. As far as 2.0, it's too early to speculate. You know, we, we've made a comment previously in the updates where we said that we're going to do everything possible to take as little as we possibly can from the government. So that means if anybody was drifting towards JobKeeper, we were trying to do everything possible to not get to that 30% threshold. And I think we've done a really good job of that. And that's still our outlook today. You know, originally, some of the tourist locations were suffering.
But to be honest, some of the tourist locations are some of the highest growth locations now in the country. You know, Noosa's and Byron Bay and, I mean, they've gone, you know, as there's local travel, those towns are booming. So you know, they never went to that space. But CBDs are still a little different, but it's not as bad as it was at the epicenters. I don't know. You know, each other country, each of the countries is a little different. But, Nick, any other color on JobKeeper you want to add?
Yeah. I think you covered it off really well, Don. I mean, it was a small amount of franchisees in the first instances. And, you know, they were obviously very genuinely affected in that period of time. As we trade out of this, we would hope that, if the need or requirement would be less.
Yeah. And I know it shouldn't have to be said, but please know that we're also going to be auditing this to just make sure we're doing the right thing, to make sure that those who did receive it are passing it through to their team members and doing the right thing and that they've justified we should have received it. That's just to do the right thing as you would expect from a public company.
Thank you, Don. A question from Aryan from UBS. Profit on sale of stores fell year on year in the second half. And how do we think about the profit on sale of stores moving forward?
Yeah. Look, it's, it's going to be very active in this 12 months, all things given equal, and I mean, I could go to each of the CEOs there because they're all active in that space. The biggest part of the portfolios, though, are Japan and, and Australia. So maybe Josh, you can start on Japan and your thoughts about that.
Good one. So profit on sale is still, yeah, a very active part of our business. We're still recycling a lot of our corporate stores. As I mentioned before, we franchisees in Japan prefer to buy a turnkey solution. So we'll be, you know, sort of recycling those through. Overall, there are some, you know, different profitability you get off stores depending on how you're, you know, where you're positioned within Japan and depending on their sales. So we don't see this going away. We actually see a lot more corporate stores being sold through.
But we also start, we'll start seeing a lot more new stores open by franchisees as well, which is, while some of them do, some of them more mature in our portfolio now, and starting to see the benefit and have the teams ready to take on, I guess, new stores and not really wait for us to, you know, get a turnkey solution from them. So it's a bit of a dual strategy at this moment.
And Nick, thank you, Josh.
Yeah. So definitely a focus for us to be consolidating that corporate store base. And as Josh has already talked about, obviously, inside of that group, we have variability in the portfolio of stores that we do have. You know, for example, we do have a lot of city stores that have changed in the way that they operate. But we certainly have a lot of stores that franchisees are very interested in working with us on. So I expect, you know, barring any big lockdowns and those kinds of things which may delay that strategy out, that we will be able to see a meaningful reduction in this year.
And André, there's not as much activity over in Europe. But is there anything that you can add to Europe or not really?
No. What we've seen a lot in the Netherlands, especially, that we've opened a lot of stores with young managers that had little to no money to their name. And we pre-financed those and then sold them later because they could get bank financing. That has slowed down now because most of them have been refinanced, which is good for our CapEx. But we'll see the same in France with the Emerging Leaders that we want to put into stores. And we'll see the same in Germany when we open more stores with young guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. A couple of questions from on Japan. Andrew McLennan has asked that Japan continues to hold the majority of your capital. And it looks like your net corporate stores has been relatively flat despite strong store additions. Can you discuss the progress of conversion to franchises, and expectations for coming years? At the same time, Richard Barwick has asked regarding Japan store openings that it appears the second half openings were entirely corporate, and similarly asking for that corporate franchisees, franchise store expectations moving forward.
Over to you, Josh.
Sure. So, the first question. Sorry, I just missed that first question. I got the second one. So maybe I'll answer that and you can come back to it. The franchisees. Sorry, I missed both. I had a really big thing through there. Can you just repeat those?
That's okay. Broadly speaking, those two questions relate to what's your expectation in terms of the makeup of corporate and franchise stores? And it appeared that most of those stores were opening as corporate in this half.
Yeah. Sure. So just one thing to note. I think in the second half, we actually, you know, you actually saw franchise stores go from 275 stores; they're now up past 300 stores, you know, 308 stores, to be precise. And these sort of come in and out. If you look at the corporate store network, we've said quite a few times, through these presentations, that we actually produce a lot of our managers through the corporate store base, which then become franchisees. So whilst it's been relatively flat, we, you know, we have been recycling that through. And it most likely, if you look forward, you won't see that number change too much. But what you will see is a lot more franchise stores that come on as part of the portfolio. We'll always adjust our portfolio that makes sense for our corporate overhead.
So you probably see a lot more rural and regional growth where our corporate overhead doesn't make sense, you know. So we're looking for critical mass, obviously, with and those actually, you know, it's the right way to do things because if we have more stores that we can handle and we don't have to extend the overhead out to long places away from Tokyo and Osaka where we hold most of our corporate stores, then that actually just drops through a lot better at the bottom line. Hopefully, that answers the question.
Thank you, Josh. A question in terms of cash flow, whether there's been any timing benefits to operating cash flow. Grant Saligari notes that gross debt was higher and cash on hand was higher at the period end, which suggests a net cash benefit late in the period, perhaps payables timing.
Yeah. So actually, a good place to go, we would provide some more detail on our working capital because I thought I'd get a reasonable number of questions around that is Appendix 6. So if you have a look at that, we'd break it down in more detail. But to answer your question, about one-third of that benefit is a timing benefit, out of Europe where we did get some extended trading terms from some of our very large suppliers, that supported us through that early phase of COVID, in addition to delays in payments for government related taxes and etc., just delays. So about one-third of it is timing and will reverse into the next half. The other two-thirds is relates to Japan's significant sales increases. So and you know, May and June were very high for the business especially.
So that flowed through into our cash flow. If those sales maintain, we'll obviously keep that benefit. And so, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what May and June does next year. But that's sort of the position. So I would say 1/3 d definitely timing and 2/3 , you know, relating to just the benefits we're getting from growing our sales in a largely corporate store operation and significant leverage that we have there.
Thank you, Richard. And, you know, adding to that color, Josh has just gone through his third summer there in Japan. And in previous years, this very much was like a fashion business. We were really suffering from, you know, oh, getting our big profits from Golden Week and getting our big profits from Christmas and New Year. And Josh and Todd and the team have worked very hard to build these layers where now, three years in a row, you know, we would actually lose money in some of those summer months because we just didn't have enough leverage from the sales. And now we've had some incredible profits year on year. So we are showing proper repurchase cycle and becoming, we're getting a lot more customers that are seeing it as not just a one-off meal. And Josh, any color to that?
Yeah. Well, that's right. And this is really an important reason why we launched these two structural programs. You know, we always were always scared by the fact that we made most of our profit over a couple of months of the year. Now we're looking at a business that, you know, we're making money across the whole year. And that takes a lot of stress away from the teams, the franchisees. And that's what really makes franchisees, you know, you've seen that in our franchise numbers whereas they're growing and continuing to invest in the business. But moreover, if you go back to the structural changes and these pricing changes, you know, we've got people accessing our brand, have the ability to access our brand, you know, coming in through carryout delivery because there are no barriers now.
We used to be relatively expensive. We used to be a special occasion, you know, over Christmas. But now we're more meal as a task. We're growing the occasions and we're growing pizza consumption in Japan.
Yeah. Further adding that, this also is a comment that's relevant to Germany and France. It is that, you know, because our biggest shooting stars in the early years were Australia, New Zealand, and the Benelux, which are populationally small, you know, we were quite familiar that the businesses were safe to be run from, you know, Auckland or Brisbane or from Groningen. And in, it's like Auckland in the Netherlands, you know, or Utrecht now. But what we've realized in Japan and Germany and France is that you can't just be running from the capital. So, you know, Josh and the team, and I know Stoffel's now fragmenting Germany out into models that basically break them up into populations the size of the Netherlands or the size of Australia.
And so instead of being a Tokyo or Hamburg, or Paris-driven business, we're now looking at growth in the regions and slicing it up into pieces. And that's working extremely well in Japan. It's just started in Germany and it's starting in France. And maybe Stoffel, you can even add some color to what you're doing in Germany because I think it's important for shareholders to understand how we think about the bigger markets.
Yeah. Thank you, Don. So the way we've kind of approach currently, we're looking at Germany as four geographies. And we've got market managers in place, which are senior operations people who run their own show. And we've analyzed that even in a small country like the Netherlands, there is differences in geography, differences in markets. But we were still able to handle that from one central location. In a bigger country like Germany, which is geographically very different and also the state of our business being very different after the two conversions of Joey's Pizza and Hallo Pizza, Hallo had a geography, positioning them in the west in North Rhine-Westphalia. Joey was more all over but underpenetrated in the west. And these are at very different stages of their journey in the Domino's world.
The franchisees and the customers in the long run deserve the attention of a dedicated senior person that doesn't sit in Hamburg but is in their region who they can have easy access to and that knows exactly what the customers and the franchisees need. That's, as Don said, it's early days for us, but I'm confident that it's the right way. I'm getting a lot of positive response from franchisees that are not close to Hamburg that they see that their problems, their questions, and their markets are being seen by us and by their market leader.
Yeah. And, Andrew, really, maybe you can add to that as well. I mean, you put a number out there for shareholders today. You're going to have 500 stores over the next, over the next whatever. I forget what the date was, eight months, I think it was. But, you know, how are you doing that? Why is it different now?
Yeah. I think, thanks, Don. Yeah, the situation in France is we have got is a big country geographically, still a big number of, the majority even of French people cannot get Domino's Pizza delivered yet. So we still have a huge potential where we can go out and build these stores. What is interesting is we're starting to do is that we're in the west, for example, the northwest where we have a very strong young franchisee base. We've got the first ones that are actually moving to other parts of France where there are bigger opportunities to develop Domino's in those areas, which is something we've seen in some of the other countries as well. It's very encouraging to see that some of these people now seeing that they can develop with us.
And some of them even came from the Pizza Sprint acquisition. So that's even more encouraging that we're bringing in new people with that acquisition as well. And these people are now starting to help us develop elsewhere. So I think, you know, there is that opportunity. We generally have a bigger presence in the north, not necessarily in Paris, but in the surrounding areas in the north of France. And there's a lot of opportunity still towards the south. So that's a big part of our plan to get 500 stores is to go out and fill out the areas which we are still very underrepresented. So, you know, 500 stores will only really be the beginning of it. There's a lot more beyond that, but we'll go for that target first.
Thank you. And, Josh, you just talked about that strategy, I mean, from, you know, Okinawa and I used to lose money. And now it's probably how are we doing that? Because I think this is important for shareholders to understand that it actually has been a significant change in our thinking in the last 18 months-24 months.
Yeah. Sure. I think there's a, you know, we have separated the way we think about the business. And, you know, I think when you manage a business, I think prior to this, we're through averages. Averages lie, as we all know. So we've really put a lot of focus in segmenting all our business units. We've got 57 different TV markets. And we've put an enormous amount of focus on how do we get to critical mass, so that we can get on air more and more in each one of these prefectures. And that has really changed some of the game. It's changed the way we've rolled out stores. It's changed many of the decisions around resourcing. And also it's helped to, you know, the aggregate of that has meant that we've been able to get more exposure, better buying.
You know, we're rolling out initiatives to save money through, you know, every time we add a store, we get better distribution. We get better rates. We get all sorts of efficiencies that come off this. And as well as we get overhead recovery in each one of those prefectures. A very important part of our strategy is to really isolate and look at our business across a range of areas and just try to find ways to be successful on a local prefectural level, knowing that, you know, you can't compare Tokyo to Okinawa. You can't compare Tokyo to Fukuoka. They are very different, very different people, different ways of life, different GDPs, different, you know, wages and salaries. It is very important to have a strategy locally for each one of those prefectures.
Thank you, Josh. Back to you, Nathan.
Thank you, Don. Michael Simotas has been very patient today. He sent through some questions in the chat. So, Michael notes that it looks like we're being modest in Japan, but effectively, all of the growth in EBITDA has been attributed to COVID based on the adjustments. Has the business also improved on an underlying basis? And Josh, I think you answered that in your initial presentation, but perhaps you can sort of, you know, speak broadly about that growth in Japan.
Yeah. Look, the growth in Japan, I mean, we've had a lot of eyeballs on our business. And that's been because of COVID, because of some of the shutdowns that have happened. But, you know, there's the businesses that choose to sort of do well through this tailwind and the ones that choose to make some big decisions and accelerate, you know, strategies within the business and bring those forward. We've been working on different structural pricing layers within our business for probably the last 18 months. And we have shared that with investors. So when it came time to do this, we had actually had all the tests in place. We'd been, you know, testing different pricing layers within our business, carryout and delivery. And it just proved to be the right time to launch these things.
So they are bold moves, but they were tested and calculated moves. We actually feel that this is the right layers for the business. It's right for the Japanese population. There are so many access points to our brand now. There's no excuses. We were probably more too expensive, and that's why we have to be honest with ourselves sometimes. And we had to find a way to get value. And you know, we've spoken about the frequency of the Japanese consumer many times. You know, we are growing frequency. And that's how we know that we've got the right pricing layers within the business. And you know, it's just really encouraging to see the numbers coming out of that and the return and the way the brand is being portrayed by our brand studies.
You know, we definitely have a tailwind, but I think it's more a tailwind with our pricing, now and our whole brand in general.
Continuing that is that you hear continuously from each of these CEOs is that each country is very aware of how important value is, you know, living with COVID, but even potentially post-COVID with the economic effects. Each of them have got very clear communications. Stoffel talked about the second pizza for EUR 2. That's also doing well in the Netherlands. Very well aware of the Australian AUD 15 delivery with no conditions. You don't get those hidden surprises you get on other platforms. Josh is with these 50% carryout, you know, focus on delivery deals. France is doing a lot of work in that area as well. This is something that is important because we're going to provide affordable treats.
You know, very well aware of how many people are sitting at home and are not restauranting. And we need to be more attractive knowing that they also have potentially less disposable incomes that they're prepared to put in out there. And that's going to be key. That's over this next period of time, however long this is, one to three, five years, who knows?
Thank you, Don. Another question from Michael. Just in terms of group EBITDA, Michael's done some calculations essentially and saying that it's declined, in the second half on a constant FX basis, and that adjusting for COVID, group EBITDA grew by, about 5% ex, foreign exchange, and the COVID impact. Michael's question is, should we expect growth to accelerate from this given this is much lower growth than we're used to seeing?
Yeah. This is the ultimate question, Michael. I think, you know, we, as I said earlier, we're very confident in our business model. We're confident in that our approach, but we're also very aware of the world that we live in right now, so we have to continue to put that across the business to say that, you know, who would have thought New Zealand just 10 days ago would be where it is right now and how quickly Melbourne came out and then Belgium returning, and you can look at every one of the nine geographies for DPE, and they've all got rising COVID cases, so you know, we've got to remind our teams that, you know, be prepared and be ready to move agile.
And we're constantly thinking about how where were we weak in some of those moments and how can we even do it better next time. So all things given equal, this is a good trading environment for us. But those lockdowns could have an effect on store openings in a period of time, or they could have an effect on the trade. So we have to be realistic with that. But yeah, clearly the last five months, even with some of those lockdowns, if you look at the last quarter to now, business is trading very well. We've seen some sales of 80% and likewise 11% and 12%. And you need to know that each geography is performing well.
So whilst Japan was quite material in that first quarter and still is material, the weight of where Australia, New Zealand is assisting and Europe is assisting right now is quite strong. So we're not, we don't have a weakness in any of the regions right now, from a sales and profit point of view. They're all performing in that sense. But now.
Thank you, Don. You noticed, Don, some, obviously, that we're living with COVID for the foreseeable future as far as we know, and that obviously there's a lot we still don't know at the moment. Perhaps then you can talk about how you reconcile that in terms of what your confidence about safety. I know there's been previous commentary about, you know, people will make questions or make decisions during this time based on their perceived safety of the brand. How do you sort of reconcile that?
Yeah. So this is what we talk a lot with our team members. And this, this actually came from Andrew Bradley, who led this from France, is that the, the mission mentality that, you know, when we, when we saw the government more or less challenge everybody to close and stay at home, and then, and the government was going to pay everybody to stay at home, it was very hard to get people to work. And, and that developed our mission mentality, in that, you know, because we didn't, we didn't want that to happen, lean on the government, as we said before. And, and also we genuinely believe that when a pizza leaves the oven somewhere between 245 degrees and 260 degrees, we do have different recipes around the world, that's a kill step.
That's, it's something that's been paramount to Domino's globally that we live by that kill step. Things, you know, are freshly baked from the oven. You don't see us doing fresh-made salads because then that doesn't have the kill step in the Domino's process. So, that's really important because once that pizza leaves that oven, the only hands to touch those pizzas after that will be the customers. We've been, you know, very religious around that. Then when we rally our team members of why they should come to work is because they're going to keep people safely at home. That's. We genuinely believe that. We are going to be generous. We're going to look after them. We're going to look after the communities.
And so, you know, being part of that, you know, even in the closing days of New Zealand, we didn't throw away all that food we had in our pipeline. We gave it away. The stores went to town to give everything away they possibly could because they were about to go into closure. And, you know, that's the first and foremost. You need to understand everybody on this call and all their teams are fully empowered. Make the decisions. What do you need to do? Put people first. If that means donating, if that means, you know, for our stores doing things, it's the right investment because when we're in these current periods, that investment now pays off. And we're privileged enough to trade so let's do that.
Don, just on that question then, this goes into, I think, a question from both Grant and Craig. Craig asked in terms of the breakdown of support, and just stepping through the kinds of items. I mean, essentially also, that question as to what is a one-off. And then Grant Saligari was asking, you know, how did we reconcile record profitability in Australia with the fact that we had provided large support costs and variance to budget on that slide 14?
Yeah. So, support comes in many different ways. Some of them that don't even come through here. For example, across the globe, right as soon as we hit that epicenter period, we extended trade in terms of franchisees, even if they were trading. We wanted to remove fear. Fear does horrible things to people. And we wanted to make sure, you know, that we could do the right thing by our franchisees, reduce fear so they could focus more on the most important things, which was keeping their team safe, looking after customers and so on. So, you know, those extended trading terms were not required later. And as you can see from our cash flow, they've nearly, in almost all cases, been returned back to normal trading terms. Then you've got the things that were costs.
Once again, I would say in hindsight, we were more generous in parts of Europe and Australia than we needed to be. But I don't have a regret for that because in that window, it felt right. And I know Nick and and André and all of the European team decided, like, you, somebody asked before, Germany traded so well. And by the way, it nearly did the whole time. Why were you so generous? Well, because the mindset of the franchisee was still in fear. And that means we gave away, in some cases, food reductions or we gave away, you know, PPE. We didn't want a conversation about should I put a shield up or not.
We were going to pay for it. We were going to install it because it was just the right thing to do. Sanitizer in the foyer. We were going to install it. We were going to donate. It was the right thing to do. In some cases, masks. You know, debate around masks. No, we're going to install them. And they're there for team members, even where it's a voluntary, you know, because around the world, masks are different. So between some food support, across the board in certain markets, just, and, you know, cash flow support, which has been wound back and didn't really cost us anything, because as Richard highlighted, we also got support from our warehouses with trading terms, and then the stores that got the real deep support were the CBD stores. And that might have come in the form of marketing.
We may have funded marketing. It would have come in the support of royalties. It would come in the area of food. It could come in rent. Whatever it took to keep those franchisees solvent. They are good stores. They are in good locations. These are some of our best franchisees in the world. You know, people like Nick Knight grew his business out of CBD Sydney. We wanted to make sure that we were going to stand by. We're still doing that today with always the mindset of how do we grow them through this. There's still people living in those areas. You know, somebody asked about JobKeeper 2.0. How do we not have to get into JobKeeper 2.0?
If that's how we first think, now in the end, if there is no other choice because they're down that deeply, then of course, they're, you know, they're taxpaying businesses and they have access to that, be it a small number around the world.
Thank you. I know Don has to go shortly to a media interview, but I'll keep on pushing on with some questions, as much as possible to try and get through as many as possible. Obviously, we have a number of calls back to back over the next few days. A question from Sam Haddad, just talking about the implications more broadly on the structural changes on the industry. His question is, are we seeing there's an impact on independent stores in our regions, particularly places like France and Germany where they're more fragmented, and if there is any structural implications longer term for our industry?
You know, look, it is unfortunate that the future is being brought forward. So this was already happening and it's just being sped up. So that every single trend is now a great acceleration of those trends. And I use the number three years because we've read some research in the marketplace. We've done our own research and the numbers we were expecting were in percentages and so on, is bringing the future of digital forward three years and so on. And so it is unfortunate that the aggregated costs when you don't deliver yourself are quite high and meaningful. And that does hurt a lot of independents. So their delivery models are not as profitable as a Domino's delivery model where we have a very productive delivery team, a very efficient delivery team.
So yes, that is, that has been across the globe. But what I will maybe, if I could hand over to André, you can steer the European conversation around that. And thank you very much, everybody. And I look forward to talking to you over the next few days as I, as I drop off the call.
Yeah. Thanks, Don. Yeah. We've increased our research, our consumer research in all markets. And the feedback that we're getting is that obviously food safety, but general safety has become a lot more important and that customers then flock to bigger brands that they trust, that they know they have their hygiene in order. And obviously in all markets almost, we were the first to communicate that we had Zero Contact Delivery, Zero Contact Pickup. So we did gain a lot in trust. And I think the independents lost a bit of trust in making sure that customers understand that their food is safe and the whole procedure around the food is safe. We did communicate the fact that we don't touch the pizza after it comes out of the oven.
It's just a customer that touches it. That was based on the research that we did for customers, saying we want to make sure we want you to tell us that we're safe in ordering your product, and that comes at the expense of some of the smaller chains or even the independents, I'm sure, even though the total market delivery market grew in the same period as well.
Thanks, André. I've had a question from Shaun in terms of cash flow. We answered another question on cash flow just earlier, but seeking to get some information on what the quantum of extended payment terms from suppliers in Europe and what the outlook is for cash conversion when this tailwind is not available.
Yeah. Look, I'm not sure if I can give too much more detail on that. You know, we've obviously, actually probably why don't we go if you have a look at Annex VI, our working capital. We've broken it down into a fair bit more detail. So, our working capital benefits in Europe was AUD 25.3 million. We do expect that is predominantly timing. There is some, you know, obviously uplifts from the growth in our corporate store sales, that just cycles going forward. But, you'd probably say that that will reverse into H1 21. The big question mark is, our Japanese working capital increase was predominantly as a result of the big Q4 sales growth for Japan.
And, you know, if we roll that again next quarter, then we'll continue to achieve that benefit or that benefit won't go away. So I would say, you know, around AUD 25 million is timing and the rest will either bank subject to how Japan performs into the coming 12 months.
Thanks, Richard. I know they've had a couple of questions on email. So if I've missed any of those, can you please make sure you send them through in the chat section? Just go to Nick, a question from Richard Barwick in terms of Car Park Delivery. What proportion of stores actually have a car park? And how meaningful do you believe these might be for sales?
Yeah, well, it's a good question, but it's probably too early to tell given that there's various iterations of how this is being adapted, and you know, André shared, obviously in the Dutch business, people don't use cars as much as bikes, and you know, we're sort of looking at all of those aspects. So right now, you know, it is the majority of our stores that are able to use that platform, and as we adapt different iterations of that, I expect it to be more, you know, as far as being able to quantify what kind of sales it could bring, again, you know, it's very exciting early on, shows good promise, but you know, we've only just started this journey and really how we can maximize that for our customers in our stores.
Again, I can't really give any better color than that.
Thanks, Nick. A couple of questions then in terms of expansion of the network. The first is in terms of acquisitions. Richard, you've mentioned a number of times you want to ensure Domino's is stronger on the other side of this crisis. Is the base performing strongly enough to consider acquisitions, particularly given the balance sheet?
Yes. Look, acquisitions are always something that we continue to look at. And in these times, obviously, you know, there may be opportunities that come up. So yes, we do have a strong balance sheet and we will continue to look for potential acquisitions if they make sense at the time.
Thank you. And then in terms of organic store openings, Richard Barwick has asked in terms of store openings in FY21, given that FY20 was under our expectations, does this mean that FY21 could exceed 9% growth? Now, I note that we give a 7%-9% new store openings outlook. But perhaps if we could get some color, starting with you, André, in terms of what your expectations are for store openings across Europe, and then we'll pass on to Nick and Josh.
Yeah. I think our outlook seven and nine is an average over the next couple of years, right? And I think we have an opportunity this year to open a lot more stores than we normally would, based on what we know is the overflow from last year. But also, what Andrew Bradley talked about and Stoffel about the appetite of franchisees. Franchisees feel a lot more, a lot better because they've seen how resilient we are over this period. And I think they are a lot more confident in opening more stores. And we have the opportunities. Germany and France are big markets and we're still underpenetrated there. We will keep on fortressing the Netherlands. We'll grow in Denmark and Belgium.
Yeah, I'm expecting a new record, and it's always hard to say how much it will be, but it will be more than this year given the circumstances that we know today.
Thanks, André, and onto Nick, maybe in terms of some color around store openings this year.
Yeah. So I mean, again, to caveat it with the variability of lockdowns and those sorts of things, but notwithstanding that, you know, it's new stores in Australia as well as a bit more technical given that, you know, a lot of boundary movements and the availability of sites in specific areas does present more challenges. But certainly franchisees' appetite for new stores and interest, to André's earlier point, I think that, you know, one of the things that's really loud and clear in our franchisees' minds right now is just how strong the system is, right, as a model and, you know, how resilient it is in terms of external factors.
So we're definitely seeing a lot of interest there from franchisees, you know, and a lot of it comes from, you know, fundamentally stores that are bursting at the seams where they just physically are getting to the point where they need to do that just to handle the continued volume that we're seeing. So certainly, we'd expect a lot more stores than the prior year. And as we ramp up over these next two years to see some meaningful new store counts.
Josh, you mentioned you're hitting some milestones this year.
Yeah. So look, we, you know, pretty much overlay anything Nick said with, you know, and just replace with Japan. You know, there's variability. We have to be, you know, we're optimistic. We're going to keep growing. We've been on a good cadence for some years now. We're going to continue that and keep looking for opportunities to grow where it makes sense, and, you know, looking to recycle, you know, a lot of corporate stores looking to grow through franchise, and we're really firing up both of those engines to keep growing. So I expect, you know, I won't, I can't do the math in my head, but 7% and 9% sounds, you know, is guidance. And I can't give any further detail on that.
Thanks, Josh. The next one for Nick, in from stores , noting that ANZ EBITDA to network sales margin was below 10% in the second half, and when it was previously running north of 12%, we were guiding to increases. So Michael's question is, are these sorts of levels still achievable and what needs to happen for margins to grow?
Yeah. So I mean, it's a good question, Michael. My answer would be the same as that it is every time we get asked. Nothing needs to happen, that's really outside of plan. The plan is just to continue against network sales growth. And why that's meaningful is that, you know, market like Australia, you don't have a lot more overhead. You can get a lot more synergies, and, you know, franchisees can as well when they expand their networks and they get stores, they're close to each other. And, you know, really that's the long and the short of it is as we continue to grow network sales, most of that falls through to the bottom line for us and our franchisees. And, we see that expansion on both sides of the profit pool.
But again, the big watch out there is that when we see things like Melbourne happen. Well, you know, we also have franchisees who then need assistance, but also we have a large portfolio of our own in those places. So that's where you get this variability from.
So if I jump in as well, Nathan, from a financial perspective, the sell down of the corporate stores will be critical to that, our corporate stores. So we're, you know, we're suboptimal at the moment. So, you know, with the franchise health improving and profitability growing, that gives us, gives Nick that opportunity to do that. But that is probably one of the biggest factors in terms of our margins, that those suboptimal, you know, we're over a hundred stores and we'd like to be, you know, closer to the 40 stores-60 stores running as corporate.
Thank you, Nick and Richard, for that. Some questions, then back to André in Europe. Ross Curran has asked how the brand perception in Denmark has been trading throughout this virus period, and then Andrew McLennan has noted some previous commentary from our colleagues at DPG, suggesting that there might actually be outside of Germany some tougher trends for our business, for that portfolio in Europe, so André, perhaps if you could start with the trading with Denmark, and the brand perception there at the moment.
Yeah. Like I said, we're doing lots of consumer research and we even ramped that up during the COVID to really understand the consumer sentiment, and we did that in Denmark too. We're happy to report that our brand perception over the last year has grown from the first research we did even before we opened the first store in Denmark. I would have liked to see a lot bigger growth. There's a lot of brand damage done by the previous owners in the perception of hygiene in the stores, which has played especially well during the last COVID period. But I'm happy to report that the brand perception has grown, has gotten a lot better, but we're definitely not where we are in other markets.
To the second question, DPG was mentioning, I think, about their own territories and not necessarily our territories, that they're having some headwinds there. I don't see those over our territories. All of them are performing pretty good as Don said. All of them are growing and adding to our business. So I don't see that. I know DPG has announced that they want to exit some of their markets, but I can't comment on how they see the rest of Europe outside of the UK.
Thanks, André. The final question, because I know I have a conflicting appointment for you all shortly. Just in terms of the sales mix change in Australia. So the question from Craig Woolford to Nick is, how value or has value become a greater share of sales? And then, what we're seeing in terms of average ticket size, I guess that question of growth, is it coming from customers or is it coming from ticket growth?
Yeah. So I mean, the challenge there, Craig, is obviously with the carryout business being significantly down, as we've shared with changing customer movements, that $5 option is actually being taken up less in terms of overall. But, you know, you're seeing a meaningful lift in delivery, which has typically got a higher ticket associated with it because it's got a lot more items per order as well. And typically it has more eaters per order. So there's more people sharing in that order. So, you know, definitely seeing the growth coming from the delivery end. But as we've spoken to, you know, that's something we're aware of that our customers, and there's definitely a customer who wants to and is seeking out value.
Things like Car Park Delivery allow us to give a safe new platform of access for those customers while retaining the delivery customers that we're currently seeing at this point in time.
Thanks so much, Nick. I know it's our time, as I said, we've now gone over time. I believe we've and I cross fingers that there's been no questions that have been missed on my email. I thank everyone for their patience for this new format. I also thank our colleagues from Europe for dialing in at what is it now 3:30 A.M. for our guests. As you can see, they're delighted about attending at this time of the day. So thank you very much for that. This video will actually be following processing available on our investor website. And if you have any follow-up questions, please send them through to us. Thank you all very much for your time, and we'll see many of you on the road show over the next couple of days. Thank you.