Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the second quarter 2020 Domino's Pizza's earnings conference call. At this time, all participants' lines are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jeffrey Lawrence, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, Catherine. Hello, everyone. This is Jeffrey Lawrence, CFO of Domino's. Thanks for joining the call today about the results of our second quarter 2020. As you know, this call is primarily for our investor audience. I kindly ask that all members of the media and others be in a listen-only mode throughout the call. If forward-looking statements are made today, I refer you to the safe harbor statement you can find in this morning's release and the 10-Q. We will start with my prepared comments, which will be followed by prepared comments from CEO, Ritch Allison, followed by analyst questions. We ask that our analysts limit themselves to one question, please, during this call.
With that, I'd like to walk you all through the results for the second quarter, while reminding everyone that we have communicated select preliminary estimated information for the first eight weeks of the second quarter in a business update that we released on May the 26th. As we stated in the last business update, we intend to return to our normally quarterly earnings cadence going forward, effective with today's release. Before I dive into Q2 results, I'm sure most of you have now seen the announcement this morning that after more than 20 years at the company and five as the Domino's CFO, I've decided to retire from Domino's. Domino's is about opportunity, in the past 20 years, I have had the chance to learn, grow, and lead at one of the best brands and companies in the entire world.
From a lead role early in my career in our IPO, to traveling the U.S. into more than 50 countries around the world, helping our global franchisees grow to number one, to helping the team shape our digital transformation over the past decade. I could not have asked for more, and am proud of the results we've achieved together. Like anything, you cannot do it alone. I want to thank our board of directors, Ritch and his leadership team, and my global finance team. I'd like to personally thank all the franchisees and frontline team members worldwide. You are the heart of this great brand. Most of all, my wife and my family, who have gone along with me on this unbelievable and awesome ride.
I've achieved every goal I'd set out for myself here at Domino's. I'm going to take a well-earned break with my family and see what the next adventure is for us. We are very, very excited. I've agreed to stay on until year-end and to assist Ritch and the board in identifying my successor. Know that Domino's will be in great hands and that our best days are yet to come. I will remain Domino's number one and biggest fan. Thanks to everybody again. With that, let's get into the second quarter. In the second quarter, we continued to lead the broader restaurant industry with 37 straight quarters of positive U.S. comparable sales. 106 consecutive quarters of positive international comps. A truly outstanding accomplishment and testament to the strength and resiliency of the Domino's brand globally.
We also continue to increase our global store count as we opened 125 gross new stores and 84 net new stores in Q2. Our diluted EPS in Q2 was $2.99, an increase of 36.5% over the prior year quarter, primarily resulting from strong operational results and a significantly lower effective tax rate. With that, let's take a closer look at the financial results for Q2. Global retail sales grew 5.7% as compared to the prior year quarter, pressured by a stronger dollar. When excluding the negative impact of foreign currency, global retail sales grew by 8.1%. Retail sales were positively impacted by strong U.S. same-store sales, but were negatively impacted by temporary store closures in our international markets. Same-store sales for the U.S. grew 16.1%, lapping a prior year increase of 3%. Same-store sales for our international business grew 1.3%, rolling over a prior year increase of 2.4%.
Breaking down the U.S. comp, our franchise business was up 16%, while our company-owned stores were up 16.9%. The U.S. comp this quarter was driven by both ticket and order growth and was significantly impacted by customer ordering behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, we have continued to attract new customers to our brand while focusing on safety, convenience, and value. We also note that existing customers, many of whom are part of our best-in-class loyalty program, continue to order in larger order sizes. Our delivery comp was also positively impacted by higher order counts in addition to larger order sizes. The accelerated levels of demand we saw during the middle of the second quarter remained elevated through the end of the quarter with no discernible drop-off. The international comp was driven by ticket growth during the quarter.
We were particularly proud of our international comp for the quarter as it was positive despite the negative impact on the comp in many markets, from partial week openings and closings, abbreviated store hours, and limited service methods. Other markets in our global portfolio saw dramatic increases in sales, much like the U.S. business. We continue to believe we are well-positioned to grow our global market share, both during and after this pandemic. On the unit count front, we opened 39 net U.S. stores in the second quarter, consisting of 40 store openings and only one closure. Our international division added 45 net new stores during Q2, comprised of 85 store openings and 40 closures. We believe the pandemic has had a net negative impact on store openings globally, in part due to delays in approvals and government restrictions, in addition to general construction delays.
Importantly, unit economics remains strong in most markets, particularly in the U.S. business, and we will continue to work with our franchisees to responsibly grow their businesses. Turning to revenues, total revenues for the second quarter were up 13.4% from the prior year, driven primarily by higher retail sales, which drove higher supply chain and U.S. store revenues. These increases were partially offset by lower international franchise revenues, resulting from temporary store closures, as well as pressure from the negative impact of changes in FX. Moving on to operating margin. As a percentage of revenues, consolidated operating margin for the quarter decreased slightly to 38.8% from 39% in the prior year quarter, due primarily to investments made related to the COVID-19 pandemic, partially offset by higher revenues from our U.S. franchise business and the positive impact of the sale of our New York stores to franchisees last year.
Company-owned store margin was down year-over-year and was negatively impacted by higher labor costs, partially offset by lower food and occupancy costs. Supply chain operating margin was up year-over-year and was positively impacted by lower delivery costs. G&A expenses decreased approximately $1 million as compared to the prior year quarter, primarily due to lower travel expenses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and a $2.4 million pre-tax loss recorded in the prior year related to the New York store sale. These decreases were partially offset by higher professional fees. We continue to see the benefit of improved discipline and focus in this important area while continuing to invest in strategic initiatives throughout our business.
Interest expense increased approximately $6 million in the quarter, driven primarily by a higher weighted average debt balance resulting from our 2019 recapitalization and borrowings under our variable funding notes during the quarter. Our reported effective tax rate was 4.7% for the quarter, down 8.2 percentage points from the prior year quarter. The reported effective tax rate in the quarter included an 18.5 percentage point positive impact from tax benefits on equity-based compensation. We expect to see continued volatility in our effective tax rate related to these tax benefits. When you add it all up, our second quarter net income was up $26.3 million, or 28.5%, over the prior year quarter. Our second quarter diluted EPS was $2.99 versus $2.19 in the prior year, which was a 36.5% increase. Here's how that $0.80 increase breaks down.
Our lower effective tax rate, resulting primarily from higher tax benefits on equity-based compensation, positively impacted us by $0.32. Lower diluted share count, resulting primarily from share repurchases in 2019, benefited us by $0.14. Higher net interest expense resulting from higher average debt balances negatively impacted us by $0.11. Most importantly, our improved operating results benefited us by $0.45. Let's turn to cash. We continued to generate positive cash from operations through Q2, and as of the end of the second quarter, we had more than $306 million in available cash and an additional $102 million of available borrowing capacity under our variable funding notes. Our financial standing is and remains strong. During the second quarter, we generated net cash provided by operating activities of approximately $116 million. After deducting for CapEx, we generated free cash flow of approximately $100 million.
We also invested $40 million in Dash Brands Ltd., our master franchisee in China. For accounting purposes, this is an equity investment recorded at cost and will be adjusted in the future for impairments. We have agreed to invest another $40 million in Q1 of 2021, subject to certain performance conditions being met, and may alternatively invest this amount in Q1 2021 at our option if such conditions are not met. During Q2, we returned $30 million to our shareholders in the form of a $0.78 per share quarterly dividend. Finally, we have not repurchased any shares under our authorized share repurchase program since the first week of January.
As a reminder, we have $327 million remaining under our board authorization for future share repurchases. Before wrapping up the financial update, I want to get you current on some estimates we shared with you on the last earnings call. We remain steadfast in our commitment to lead with our values and invest in our team members, our customers, and our communities. We had previously estimated that the total Q2 impact from frontline bonuses, safety and cleaning equipment, community giving, and enhanced sick pay would be approximately $15 million. The actual Q2 impact for these items came in at $11 million. Separately, we had previously estimated that the total Q2 impact on international royalty revenues from partial store closures would be approximately $5 million. The estimated Q2 impact came in at $7 million.
We continue to estimate that FX for the full 2020 fiscal year could have a $10 million negative impact on royalty revenues. Going forward, we do not anticipate providing additional forward-looking estimates on the aforementioned items. In closing, we remain in very good shape financially, we will continue to closely monitor all aspects of our business as we operate in these uncertain times. We will continue to focus on doing the right thing for our team members and communities today, while ensuring we not only survive, but are best positioned to thrive coming out of this crisis tomorrow. Thanks again for joining the call today, now I'll turn it over to Ritch.
Thanks, Jeff. You've been a trusted teammate for more than two decades, a true Dominoid with pizza sauce in your veins. Over the course of your career, you have been a key contributor to the success of our global brand, working across all aspects of the business. As our CFO, you have an outstanding track record of creating strategic value for our great system. Your accomplishments speak for themselves, and I want to thank you on behalf of the entire Domino's global community. We wish you all the best. I also want to personally thank you for staying on through the end of the year as we identify a worthy successor, and also for agreeing to serve as an advisor to me personally through the end of the year. All right. Let's now talk a bit about the business.
The COVID-19 pandemic set the background for the second quarter, creating challenges that were certainly unlike anything we've ever seen as a brand and unlike anything I've ever seen as a leader, or frankly would hope to see again. We operate in over 90 markets and across six continents, none of which were spared by this virus. Our hearts go out to those around the world that were directly impacted. Throughout the quarter, our focus as a global brand and the focus of our local operators remained steadfast on serving our customers and our communities, and doing that with a convenient, affordable, and safe food and service experience. Given the unprecedented nature of the conditions surrounding the quarter, I do want to take a few moments to say thank you. First, to our customers for giving us and our franchisees the privilege to serve you around the world.
To our franchisees and our operators, for your incredible resiliency, your passion, your innovative spirit, willingness to support each other and share best practices, and for your commitment to your teams and your communities. To our corporate teams, truly across every aspect of our business, from our supply chain to corporate operations, to our functional support teams, for leading with our values and for your unyielding commitment to supporting the brand around the world. I have never been more proud than I am today to wear the Domino's logo and to serve as your CEO. I also want to share some of the work that we've been doing as a brand, aligned with our purpose and values. Our purpose as a brand is to feed the power of possible one pizza at a time.
Our values are do the right thing, put people first, create inspired solutions, champion our customers, and grow and win together. During the quarter, this purpose and these values drove us. Drove us to partner with our franchisees to Feed the Need in giving away 10 million slices of pizza in our local communities. Drove us to pay out nearly $8 million in thank you bonuses to frontline hourly team members in our corporate stores and supply chain centers. Drove us to speak out against racism and to commit $3 million over the next three years to make a difference in Black communities, including $1 million which will be invested to establish the Domino's Black Franchisee Opportunity Fund.
We sold a lot of pizza in Q2, but I can tell you I'm even more proud of the good that our company, our team members, and our franchisees did along the way. Now I'm going to turn my attention to our second quarter results. I'll discuss our U.S. and our international businesses while weaving in a few additional topics and some perspectives on the dynamics around food delivery and the pizza category in these times, which certainly have been a tailwind for many of us within the industry. We'll share some of the latest updates related to operations and execution as we continue to navigate our way through the pandemic. Also, I'll talk about the areas where I believe we can continue to differentiate ourselves from the competition and drive shareholder value over the long term. Following that, as always, we'll be happy to take some Q&A.
Let me get started with a discussion about our U.S. business. The second quarter marked a rather unprecedented acceleration for food delivery in the U.S., and we were certainly no exception. Our 37th consecutive quarter, strongest in that nine-plus year run for same-store sales with evidence of this tailwind in delivery. Beyond the numbers, I'm most proud of our energy and execution at the store level. I absorbed unprecedented volume while maintaining high service levels and continuing to provide tremendous value for our customers. I can't say enough about our supply chain division, which did a terrific job handling heavy volumes and ensuring continued supply of product to our stores. While there remains much to sort out and still much left to unfold regarding the future of customer behavior, we realize there's an opportunity to capitalize on the engagement with both new and returning customers.
We believe value and convenience are bringing customers to us, and we hope it will continue to bring them back. Nearly 75% of our sales in the U.S. are coming through digital channels through the second quarter. This, combined with loyalty adoption, give us a good, proven chance at driving additional customer frequency. I am glad more than ever that we have this direct digital and loyalty relationship with our customers, and that we're not dependent upon a third party to bring us orders. Beyond anything else, executing a terrific delivery and carryout experience will be the ultimate way to convince these customers to come back and to remain Domino's customers for the long term. I'll now turn my attention to operations. We spent much of the quarter retooling almost 60 years of standard operating procedures, and doing that over a matter of weeks.
Our teams and franchisees have done an outstanding job of implementing many things rather quickly, including protocols around contactless delivery, including the innovation of the Pizza Pedestal to deliver pizzas to our customers' front doors, the rollout of Domino's Carside Delivery, which provides an incredibly convenient and contact-free carryout experience for our customers, and many digital enhancements that our teams have developed to make ordering, selecting service methods, paying, and tipping even easier. During all of this, our innovation and supply chain teams continued to work on our menu. Just last Monday, we began rolling out a new product, our new chicken wings, with a greatly improved wing and terrific new sauces. We've added these to our $7.99 platform, offering a 10-piece wing option in addition to our pizza offerings. We're promoting the product and the offer today through our digital channels.
Wings are a rapidly growing category, as many of you know, in delivery and carryout. As we're honest with ourselves, our wings needed to improve. This is a sign that continued menu innovation doesn't always have to be something brand new, but can be a major renovation of existing products that customers have simply told us need to be better. Our customers are mixing and matching within our value platforms more than ever before, and our new wings are a nice addition to our $7.99 carryout offer. We're very excited about this launch, and we look forward to bringing additional new product news to our customers over the next few months. Let me remind you once again how we think about new products. While product innovation is very important for any restaurant brand, at Domino's, we don't launch new products just to create news.
Our strategy in launching new products focuses on, first, driving incremental sales and orders and incremental profitability for our franchisees at the store level. We focus on permanent menu items and simple operations, and very importantly, whenever possible, fitting new menu items into our existing value platforms. Now turning to store growth. The pandemic certainly created obstacles for new store openings during the second quarter. I'm very pleased that we and our franchisees still managed to open 39 net new stores in the U.S. during Q2. Our development team and our franchisees did a great job remaining focused on smart growth across our markets. While near-term challenges remain in many cities and towns, I'm optimistic about the medium and long-term opportunity to accelerate unit growth and to take advantage of the certain opportunities that we're seeing in the marketplace.
Looking forward, I can tell you that we don't know exactly what the new normal is going to look like in the U.S. COVID-19 has accelerated some of the trends that we were already seeing in motion around delivery, carryout, and digital adoption. We expect that customer expectations around safety and contactless experiences will remain heightened for the foreseeable future. While we don't have all of the answers on the future, we will continue to focus on the fundamental areas where we know we have to compete aggressively. Value. We talk about value often. It's always important, but even more so when we're facing a recession and the high unemployment that we see today. Fortressing and unit growth will continue to be a focus, and the higher sales levels that we're experiencing and the service expectations that we have for our business make this even more important.
We will continue to expand our supply chain capacity. We opened our Columbia, South Carolina supply chain center in Q2. We are on track to open another supply chain center in Katy, Texas, and a thin crust manufacturing facility in New Jersey during the back half of this year. Innovation across all areas of our business, in digital, in delivery, in carryout, and in food will continue to be important. A focus on service, a constant focus on service, with plenty of opportunities still for us to improve, is always a focus for us at Domino's. In closing for the U.S. business, I'd like to highlight a special recognition we received this summer. For the first time since 2009, we've been recognized as the leader in customer satisfaction for the pizza category as part of the ACSI's most recent restaurant report.
That just makes me incredibly proud of our U.S. business leaders, our franchisees, and our operators. Turning our attention to international. We've now achieved 106 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales growth. To be honest with you, back in April, I thought this incredible run was in doubt. I'm in my tenth year here at Domino's, and I have never observed such wide variations in performance across our international business. During the quarter, we had several markets which saw significant increases in sales, driven in part by pandemic-driven changes in consumer behavior. China, Japan, and South Korea are leading examples. These markets are also responsible for pioneering many of the contactless delivery and carryout innovations. The U.S. and dozens of international markets have benefited from the incredible ingenuity and creativity in these markets.
However, we've had other markets which have had to deal with complete shutdowns or significant closures across their businesses. France, Spain, New Zealand, Panama, and several others were completely closed for a period of time. India and Saudi Arabia and others had significant portions of their markets temporarily shuttered. Dozens of markets had to deal with service method restrictions and business hour restrictions during the quarter. In an environment with so many challenges, I am very pleased with the resiliency and performance of our international business. Our global group of terrific master franchisees once again demonstrated that they are the absolute best in the restaurant industry. At our peak, we had about 2,400 stores closed in the international business. As markets and stores have gradually reopened over the quarter and as service methods have resumed, we've seen consistent improvement in the business.
Now, there is still much work left to return the business to where it was pre-pandemic. We are at fewer than 600 stores fully closed as of July the 8th. At the same time, however, many markets are partially closed or still restoring service methods. These factors have continued to pressure retail sales, and we expect continued volatility in the international business in the months ahead. In addition to the pressure on retail sales and same-store sales, the pandemic has also slowed our international store growth momentum. We opened 45 net new stores in the quarter, and that's far below our typical performance. We expect that it will take some time for store growth to ramp back up in the markets that have been most impacted by COVID-19.
With all that said, as I look forward, I remain very optimistic about our international business and about the growth opportunity ahead. The pandemic has accelerated delivery adoption around the world, and that is good for our business. Good for our business over the long term. We're the clear number one in QSR pizza on a global basis. We're number one in roughly half of the international markets where we compete. While we're number one in all of those places, we still believe that we have significant room for market share growth within the pizza category around the world. We feel that unit economics, cash-on-cash returns, and franchisee profitability fundamentals are still very strong in the majority of our international markets.
Over the recent weeks, I've spoken with many of our international master franchisees, and they remain very optimistic and very committed to investing in the long-term growth of their businesses. We've also taken advantage of an opportunity to invest in an international market. As Jeff shared with you earlier, we now hold a minority ownership interest in Dash Brands, our master franchisee in China. We're very happy with where the business stands today. We recently opened our 300th store in China, and we are excited about the long-term growth potential there. We believe that we can play a role in helping Domino's China reach that potential and view this as a good long-term investment for DPZ.
As I wrap up the discussion on our international business, I just want to say thank you to our incredible master franchisees and to the operators of our more than 11,000 store network outside the U.S. In closing, we will likely never forget the second quarter of 2020 as a chapter in our path toward dominant number one. We're rising to the challenge of today, and we are looking forward to capture the opportunities of tomorrow. That opportunity is driven by the fact that we continue to bring more customers into this incredible brand. Each day, we have more opportunities to delight our customers and to convert them into loyal Domino's fans. We're still very much a work-in-progress brand with plenty of areas to address and improve.
While we cannot predict the future, nor will we try to do so, we will do all that we can to come out of this challenging time period even stronger than we've ever been. The resiliency of our brand and our business model, the strength, the fortitude, the vigor of our global franchisees and operators has never been more evident in the 60-year history of our company. Most importantly, we're going to continue to lead with our values and the health and safety of our store team members, franchisees, and customers will remain our top priority. With that, Jeff and I will be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please limit your questions to one only. Our first question comes from Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer & Co. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Jeff, certainly going to miss your positive energy and definitely going to miss your wittiness. Congratulations on a terrific career at Domino's.
Thanks, Brian.
Ritch, I understand the tailwinds from the pandemic on your business in the U.S. They make sense, what can you specifically do to take advantage of these tailwinds and retain and convert these new customers and really enable this current strength to pay dividends in the future in the form of future sales gains?
Sure, Brian. Thanks for the question. We are getting an incredible opportunity today to bring more customers into the brand. As you look at the delivery business in particular, we've seen a significant increase in new customer acquisition over the course of the second quarter. Our task there is to take those new customer opportunities and convert them into the second purchase and the third, and ultimately loyal customers going forward. We've been working hard on that. The second quarter was our best quarter for driving new active loyalty members. Best quarter we've had since Q1 of 2019, when we ran our Points for Pies promotion. Working hard to convert these customers into loyal customers such that we can continue to earn their business over time.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew DiFrisco with Guggenheim. Your line is open.
Thank you. Congratulations, Jeff, on a great run as well and your next chapter and the time ahead that you get to spend with your family. Very envious. I was hoping to learn more about the Dash investment. Can you share with us the percentage of the ownership that that gives you now with Dash? Also just to clarify your development comments, it sounds like 2Q was obviously a very tough environment for development, both domestically and internationally. Is it correct to assume the environment's gotten better, that 3Q, it would be logical to have an environment that could support more growth, both domestically and internationally on a net basis? Thank you.
Hey, Matt, it's Jeff. I'll take the China part of that, and then I'll kick it over to Ritch for the development outlook. We're not disclosing the percentage ownership. It is a minority investment.
We put in $40 million. We may be required, and/or we have the option to put in another $40 million at the beginning of 2021. Listen, as Ritch said in his prepared remarks, this is just a very exciting growth market for us. Ritch and I have a lot of personal experience spending a lot of time there, and we know that if we want to hit our long-term aspirations as a brand, we have to have China be a thriving market for us. We're viewing this very strategically, in addition to being what we think will be a good financial investment, but more importantly, really a strategic investment where we can bring to bear all of our capabilities, our centers of excellence, and really partner with that master in just a more intimate and close way to help accelerate the growth long term.
Very excited about the investment. We think that it will be great for all of our stakeholders. With that, I'll kick it over to Ritch to talk a little bit about development outlook.
Sure. Matt, I'll talk about that in kind of two parts. First, on the U.S. side of the business. Certainly during the quarter, we had challenges around the country with construction delays, with permitting delays, et cetera, driven by the pandemic. Still really pleased with the store growth that we were able to achieve during the quarter. As I look out into the future, I expect us to see more and more opportunities to accelerate unit growth in the U.S. When you look at the increase in the business that we're seeing today, and I think also as you look at some of the real estate opportunities that may present themselves, that weren't available in the past, I think we've got a strong opportunity to continue to accelerate that U.S. store growth. On the international side, the situation is very different from market to market.
In markets around the world where we did not have significant store closures or trading restrictions, the business has been very strong. Those markets have continued to press ahead with their development goals in the near term. We've got other markets where we've had significant numbers of temporary store closures where really the near term focus of those master franchisees is to get those stores open again and reestablish those operations. I expect on the international side for things to remain choppy here in the near term. When I think about the medium to the long term, I still have a very high level of confidence around the growth opportunities that we've got outside the U.S.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Nick Setyan with Wedbush Securities. Your line is open. Pardon me, Nick Setyan, check your mute button.
Hi, thanks very much. Any way to give us a little bit more incremental clarification around the new customers you've acquired? Just looking at the digital mix, it's not quite clear where those new customers have been coming. Maybe if you could disclose some of the loyalty numbers, that would be helpful.
Nick, the new customer acquisition during the quarter was really concentrated around our delivery business, which is probably not surprising to many of you as customers sought a contactless experience and an experience where they didn't have to leave their homes to get their food. More so than in the carry out side of our business, where there was a lot of caution out there among customers about going out into public, into places of business during the quarter. That's really where the bulk of the customer acquisition came in. Then also we saw improvements in our customer retention across the delivery side of the business as well. A strong quarter really on both fronts as it relates to our delivery business.
Our digital percentage ran about 75% during the quarter, popping up as much as 80% in any given week, which has given us yet another opportunity to grow that engagement with our customers and an opportunity to continue to bring them on and into our loyalty program. As I mentioned earlier in my prepared remarks, Q2 was the best quarter we've seen in over a year in terms of adding active new members to our Piece of the Pie Rewards loyalty program.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Jeffrey Farmer with Gordon Haskett. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you, best of luck, Jeff. Good luck with everything moving forward. You guys did briefly touch on it, can you compare consumer behavior in some of your largest international markets? I'm thinking about places like India and Mexico, just as two examples, to what you're seeing in the U.S., just trying to figure out how consumers are behaving there in those important international markets versus what we've seen in the U.S.
Yeah. Jeff, there are a lot of consistent patterns. When you look around the world, the desire on the part of customers to have a contactless experience is certainly high. When our international master franchisees do their customer research, they see a lot of the same things that we see in the U.S., which is safety has really risen very high in terms of customer needs. The other things that have always been there, like value, consistent service, great product, still there, but safety has risen pretty high on the list. Generally what you do see then is more growth on the delivery side of the business, and then in some of our international markets where we had more of a dine-in component.
Again, we don't really do table service anywhere around the world, but we do have it in a number of our emerging markets, larger dining rooms and a higher percentage of customers who choose to sit down and eat their food in our stores. That part of the business certainly saw a lot of pressure in a number of cases where those dining rooms were closed or where customers were just very cautious about going in and eating in a public place. You take all those things into account and you end up with some, as I mentioned earlier in the prepared remarks, some fairly disparate impacts. With some markets really seeing a tailwind as we have had in the U.S., and then some other markets which have seen a lot more pressure on their business and their comps.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. We have a question from Chris O'Cull with Stifel. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, Jeff. I would also like to offer my congratulations on a very successful career at Domino's. We're going to miss the interaction. Ritch, you mentioned additional new products planned for later this year. Is this a change from your original plan for this year? Could you explain maybe why product innovation seems like it's become a higher priority for the company?
Yeah. Chris, no, it isn't. To the first part of your question, not a change from our plan this year. We had planned to have several new products coming out during 2020. As I mentioned earlier, very excited that we began the rollout last week of our new wings, and we'll have more product news coming over the course of the next couple of months. I've talked a lot about, and I talked in my prepared remarks about the approach that we take to new product development. We don't do it just for news, but we're looking for products that can remain on the menu and deliver great incremental sales and profit to our franchisees.
One of the things that we've observed as we've seen this huge boom in delivery over the course of the last couple of years is, we're trying to keep an eye on product categories that customers are really adopting at higher rates for delivery. Certainly, wings is one of those. One of the fastest-growing categories out there. We saw an opportunity, number one, to improve our wings, based on the feedback that we got from consumers, but also a great opportunity to bring terrific value by putting a 10-piece wing offer into our $7.99 platform. You'll recall that we started some years ago with our large three-topping pizza at $7.99. Over time, we've expanded that across the remaining crust types, and now we're looking at wings as yet another great opportunity to add to that mix and match platform.
I think we're going to continue to stay focused on new product development, but with the parameters that I always talk about, which is we don't do it just for news. We're going to do it if we think it brings sustained sales and profit to the franchisees.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from Lauren Silberman with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Thanks. Jeff, congratulations on the next step and the great tenure at Domino's. You mentioned comp sustained momentum through the end of 2Q. Are you seeing any differences regionally on how customers are engaging with the brand? What changes do you see in customer behavior as markets reopen for dine-in? Any shift in carryout or delivery performance?
Yeah. Lauren, we've not seen, honestly, a lot of discernible difference when we look regionally across the U.S. in the second quarter. I will say that our rural and suburban locations have generally performed better than some of the denser, more urban centers around the country. As all of you know, our brand, relative to some of the other restaurant brands, is more tilted in terms of our sales coming from more of those rural and suburban locations. As it relates to how our business performed in the quarter relative to what was going on with sit-down restaurant reopenings and things like that, I would tell you that it's still pretty early to draw any discernible conclusions there. As Jeff said, we didn't see any slowdown in momentum all the way through the end of the second quarter.
That was as a number of states and cities around the country were reopening dine-in. Even with that said, those that were reopening were only reopening at 50 and at most 75% capacity. As we're all aware, some of those things are actually being reversed as we speak and as we see another spike, unfortunately, in COVID-19 cases. Still a very dynamic and evolving marketplace out there for us.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Peter Saleh with BTIG. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks, congratulations, Jeff. You will definitely be missed. I wanted to ask about the, it looks like an announcement a couple of days ago, on the partnership with Vonage. This sounds like it might be related to the voice ordering and DOM capability. Can you guys elaborate on what you're seeing there and your expectations on rolling out the voice ordering capabilities?
Hey, Pete, appreciate the kind words and I'll take a chop at this one. You know that we continue, and have for as long as Ritch and I have been here, and before that, to be very serious about investing in our technological capabilities going forward. I think everybody who follows Domino's knows that we're a big believer in voice technology. Generally, you can order obviously on your digital or your mobile phone right now using a voice assistant. We've been working on phone DOM, trying to use artificial intelligence to take a full order. We've made great strides in that. The partnership that you referenced, again, is just part of our overall strategy to continue to invest and get smarter in this area. More than that starts to get into future strategic stuff that we're quite frankly not going to disclose because of competitive reasons.
Do know that one of the great things that we've been able to do, and even during this pandemic, is continue to invest with the long-term brand in mind. We have not slowed down in our technological investments, and in some ways, we've actually accelerated as you've seen us roll GPS, you've seen us roll Carside Delivery. I think that this crisis has really shown us that we can move faster. We can, with our great franchisees, execute a little bit faster. We're meeting the customers where they want to meet us on technology, and voice is just part of that. That'd be the color I'd give you on that.
Just know that we are and remain committed to all the technological investments that we've talked to you all about, really encouraged by what we've been able to roll out over the last three or four months, and quite frankly, gives us a lot of confidence that we'll be able to do some more of that in the future.
Great. Thank you and congrats.
Thank you, Pete.
We have a question from David Tarantino with Baird. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, my congrats to Jeff as well. My question comes back to the strength you're seeing in the U.S. business. I was wondering, Ritch or Jeff, if you can help us understand how much of the increase that you saw during Q2 was related to the new customers you're acquiring versus potentially existing customers increasing their frequency or order sizes. Could you help bucket those two things for us? Thanks.
Hey, David, it's Ritch. We're not going to break down those specific numbers for competitive reasons. Back to some of what I was describing earlier. If you take a look at the delivery business, we saw a significant uptick in new customer acquisition on the delivery side of the business, and also very strong retention or repeat purchases from existing customers. If you look on the carryout side of the business, great repeat purchase from existing customers, but not as strong on the acquisition side on the carryout business. That's not surprising. Honestly, when you think about the fact that during the quarter, many consumers were very reluctant to go outside of the home and to places of business. Now, as we watched those patterns evolve over the course of the quarter, we moved very aggressively to implement our Domino's Carside Delivery.
We're actually on TV advertising that today. You've probably seen our ads. That is really an effort to, number one, create a terrific carryout experience for the customer where they never even have to get out of their car. It is contactless in that our store team members will bring the pizza out of the store and will put it in the customer's trunk or back seat, wherever they want to put it. In the near term, it really is all about driving customer acquisition and frequency for the carryout business. Over the long term, it's a great way for us to compete against the drive-thru that so many other QSRs have, but that we have in a very limited number of our U.S. stores.
Just one example of an innovation there that we are focused on, not only to address the demand dynamics of the near term, but also as we think about how we position the brand for success in the future.
Very helpful. If I could ask just one follow-up. Ritch, when you acquire a new delivery customer, what's been your historical retention rate on that? Do you have any metrics you can share on that front?
David, we got a lot of metrics on it, but we don't share them publicly.
All right. Fair enough. Worth a shot. Thank you.
Thanks, David.
Thanks, David.
It's a great try. I love it.
We have a question from John Glass with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Jeff, wow and hats off. My question, well, it's really two things. One is, how does this pandemic change your view or modify your view maybe on the fortressing strategy, right? If this is a moment where delivery is expanding and accelerating, is it still right to do fortressing? I understand one of the primary reasons fortressing originally was that carryout business. Are you as enthusiastic about that business as you were prior? Ritch, I'd also be really interested in your comments and thoughts on what's happening in the third-party aggregator business. There's been a couple of acquisitions and transformations in those businesses. What do you think that means for Domino's as that industry gets consolidated, but you also get some new competitors in the U.S.?
Thanks, John. First on the fortressing, I am, if anything, more enthusiastic about fortressing, given what we've seen during the pandemic, and the increased sales and momentum that we've had there around our delivery business. Carryout has been growing in a very strong way for quite some time also. When I take a look at it, I just see more opportunity to get more stores on the map from a demand standpoint. When we think about the real estate environment out there, I also think that we are going to have, in the near and medium term, a fairly unprecedented opportunity in terms of the availability and affordability of real estate out there.
As an unfortunate reality of the pandemic is that there will be a number of retail stores and restaurants that will close, quite a few of which will be in a similar footprint, kind of environment to what we look for. Then I think also we may see a more favorable market in terms of rents that we can go out there and get with landlords. I'm as optimistic and even more so than ever around fortressing. On your second question around the third party aggregator market. Certainly it's been a very interesting quarter as it relates to news out there about possible consolidation. I've been talking for a long time about the fact that the only way that that business gets to profitability is through some form of consolidation over time.
Given what has happened recently with a couple of deals that have been announced, frankly, I don't see that changing the competitive dynamic a whole lot. Certainly for the near term, I expect those aggregators to still remain very promotional in terms of how they're going out to acquire customers. I expect them to remain pretty aggressive, in particular with how they go out and cut deals with the largest QSRs. When we take a look at it from Domino's perspective, we expect it to continue to be a highly competitive environment that we'll participate in, and we expect it to continue to be a pretty tough environment for the third-party aggregators in terms of their ability to drive profitable transactions.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Dennis Geiger with UBS. Your line is open.
Thanks for the question, and Jeff, congratulations on a great run and good luck. Just wondering if you guys could share any thoughts on sort of how important the enhanced unemployment checks have been on the business. I guess more importantly, how you're thinking about any kind of strategy tweaks as and in if they roll off. Does this change your strategy with respect to marketing or promotional activity? Anything you can comment there on a high level? Thank you.
Sure, Dennis. I think certainly, the initial stimulus checks and the additional unemployment, I think no doubt have enabled a lot of consumers to continue to eat, to eat out, to order food delivery, et cetera. How much of the business is driven by that? We honestly don't know. I can tell you that as we look forward, there's a lot of uncertainty, obviously, around what that stimulus might look like post July. We're remaining very focused on value, frankly, as we always have been, because-We're going to be in a recession for some period of time here, where consumers' pocketbooks are going to be under pressure. We've got to have great value with our national offers, great value on our menus, and we got to have great value with respect to what we charge customers to deliver that food.
I feel very good about where Domino's is positioned on those fronts.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Chris Carroll with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning again, Jeff. Congratulations on a great career at Domino's, and all the best in next steps. As a follow-up to John's question on fortressing, given your commentary around real estate opportunities, and together with presumably another strong franchisee cash flow year, does the current environment change your thinking at all about the long-term store development opportunity in the U.S.?
Chris, I think if anything, it increases potentially the opportunity over time. Obviously, we don't know exactly how long we're going to be in this COVID-19 pandemic. We don't know when we're going to have a vaccine or effective therapeutics. Significant disruptions like this do tend to accelerate changes in market share and create opportunity. As we take a look at this, we are looking for opportunities to move even more aggressively to get stores open. If anything, I see an opportunity that could only grow over time.
Great. Thank you.
We have a question from Katherine Fogertey with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Jeff, congratulations on an impressive tenure and track record at Domino's. Best wishes on your next step. I have a few questions here. The first is, can you help us understand the cadence in the quarter, on both the carryout and the delivery business in the U.S.? You've given us a split historically, just kind of wondering a few things. How is it tracking now? The commentary you gave suggests that delivery was the strongest business, intuitively that makes a lot of sense. As the economy started to reopen in the back half of the quarter, are you seeing improvements in carryout? Also on the delivery side, did that improvement kind of continue and accelerate as the economy reopened, or have you seen some moderation? I have a follow-up question.
Katie, I think we heard you a little bit on that. I'll take a shot at it. What I would tell you is this customer behavior that we're seeing during the pandemic is really meeting Domino's where we already were, with great carryout, great delivery, a frictionless technological experience, great value. In many ways, I think this pandemic has just accelerated a lot of what we thought we probably would have earned over time, but that it came to us quickly. As it relates to delivery versus carryout, those two different service methods, when we see places that have restrictions lifted around carryout, we sell more carryout while still having a great delivery business. To us, it's less about, is a certain day part shut down? Does a certain regulation happen?
We know that when customers have unfettered access to Domino's, that we have every chance to build sustainable relationships and sales with these customers over time. We clearly saw that during Q2, again, with no discernible drop-off in demand through the end of the quarter. That gives us a lot of confidence that for the foreseeable future, customers are going to continue to really value both delivery and the carryout experiences, as allowed by local and state ordinances, depending on where you're at. For us, again, we feel like this has just been us meeting the customer where they were already going. The pandemic, I think, has accelerated that. Again, on our side, we've tried to meet the customer where they want to be by rolling out the innovations faster and more efficiently.
By the way, kudos to our 800 franchise partners in the United States. The job that they have done, as Ritch mentioned in his prepared remarks, with rewriting operational procedures, executing at a high level, keeping service up during this pandemic has been nothing short of just outstanding. That would be the commentary that I think we could give you around that. We're in the right businesses. You want to be in carryout, you want to be in delivery, whether there's a pandemic or not. With that, I'll pause, and I think we'll allow you a quick follow-up if you talk louder.
Great. Thank you. On the point you kind of mentioned, that color, by the way, was very helpful. You talked about higher tickets being a helpful contributor to the comp. Can you help us understand the extent of which that was helpful? Even if you would dive into delivery versus carryout. Do you see the ability to sustain the ticket growth in the U.S. in the coming quarters? Maybe that's menu innovation, maybe it's bundling, or should we factor that in dying down as the recovery plays out?
Katie, it's Ritch. On the ticket dynamic, a little different across the two businesses. Growth in delivery really driven both by order count growth and also ticket, but with a pretty heavy growth in order count. On the carryout business, growth for the quarter really driven more by ticket. In both cases, it's more items. Customers are ordering larger basket sizes. It's really interesting. One of the things that we have heard over the quarter is that customers are actively putting more food in the basket to have leftovers the next day. They're thinking about not just that evening's meal, but how they're planning for the following day. How much of that dynamic continues following COVID-19? We honestly don't know today.
We're continuing to obviously track it and follow it, but at this point, it is really hard to say given where we are in the cycle of this pandemic.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Ivankoe with JPMorgan. Please limit yourself to one question.
That's one question. Congratulations, Jeff. I can't wait to hear what's next. Just a comment on Dash. Obviously, you guys are investing from a position of strength. You're accelerating unit development from a position of strength. Do you think that that could have the potential? Would you want to have majority ownership stake at some point? Obviously, I ask the question, this is the first time you have made a direct investment in an international franchisee, and this is a related question. Are there any opportunities for you to provide capital or cash flow assistance to any large franchisees elsewhere outside of China that could also be converted into a significant equity stake, as clearly some operators must exist that could benefit from some cash flow from a working capital perspective.
Hey, John, it's Ritch. First on Dash. We're quite happy to be a minority partner in that business. There's a great group of partners that own the rest of the equity in that business and a terrific management team on the ground to lead that. We see this as a great opportunity to create value for DPZ, but also to be a great thought partner and strategic partner with the board there and the management team as we grow the business. Looking elsewhere around the globe, we've never said never on investing in these international businesses. Dash happened to be a terrific opportunity to do that. If others were to come around at some point in the future, we might consider that, but the bar is very high.
You've only seen us do this one time in any recent memory, so it's not something that you should expect us to do in wide scale.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Gregory Francfort with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks for the question. Jeff, congrats on retirement. I'm definitely going to miss our interactions. Ritch, I had a question for you. Just there seems to be a lot that's changing with COVID, and I'm curious what you think are the biggest changes to Domino's strategy post-COVID versus pre-COVID. I don't know if that's greater focus on unit growth or focus on the supply chain or focus on value. If you could just kind of comment on what you think is the biggest change in how Domino's is approaching kind of the strategy to grow, that would be helpful. Thanks.
Sure, Greg. When I think about what's going on, at least so far with COVID, I think the reality is it has accelerated a lot of trends that were already in place in our industry. When you think about digital adoption, when you think about the migration from on-premise to off-premise through delivery and carryout, those things have just accelerated and leapt forward by a year or two or three years. When I look at what we need to do going forward, a lot of it is doubling down on the things that we've been doing. fortressing, for example, to make sure that we continue to get closer and more convenient to our customers.
We haven't slowed down a bit in terms of our investment in the digital side of our business and making the ordering experience easier for customers, ordering all the way through paying and receiving your food, both for the delivery and the carryout experience there. I will tell you that one thing that is very different in COVID-19 is just the heightened sensitivity around food safety and contactless methods. We've invested heavily there, and my expectation is that is going to continue to be important to customers for quite some time to come. I think that is one thing that is likely to be a bit different. As many customers have ordered delivery that had never ordered delivery before, I think our ability to offer variety is going to be even more important in the future than it is today.
That's why you've seen us renovate a product in wings that needed to be renovated. It is a category that is growing rapidly here as we look through COVID-19, and we're looking to other opportunities around menu innovation as well, to take advantage of the fact that customers are just choosing to order delivery more often and across a much wider variety of food. Greg, doubling down on some of the same strategies, but then also leaning in maybe a little bit more on some of the other things that we believe we need to do to be very competitive going forward.
Thanks, Ritch.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks very much. Jeff, congratulations. Hard to imagine any future endeavors as much fun or successful as your years at Domino's. My primary question is just on the U.S. delivery business. Ritch, just wondering, you commented on the third-party aggregators and perhaps a little bit of consolidation going on here. I'm just wondering whether your thoughts have changed at all in terms of perhaps using an aggregator to generate some incremental sales on different platforms as we've seen their popularity increase, even if you continue to be the one doing the delivery. Then just to clarify, did you make any mention of, I know you did last quarter, you talked about weekday, weekend, lunch, dinner, or any third quarter-to-date momentum. Any color would be great. Thank you.
Sure. Jeff, hey, first on the third parties, it's only strengthened my point of view that we don't need to be on those platforms. I cannot imagine that we would've been able to move as quickly as we have in meeting our customer, as Jeff described where they wanted to be, if we didn't have full control over that digital experience and the actual contactless experience at the point of delivering the food. We've had pretty strong growth in demand without having to ask our franchisees to pay high fees to a third party. My point of view is strengthened. Your second part of your question around day parts. Since the last time Jeff and I spoke to you about the business, at that time, I think we talked about lunch growing pretty rapidly, dinner being softer.
We've seen more balance there in terms of growth at lunch, growth at dinner. I will tell you that the evening day part is still relatively weak, in terms of growth, compared with the growth that we're seeing across some of the other day parts in the business. By and large, continuing to see strong at lunch and strong at dinner.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Brett Levy with MKM Partners. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks for taking the call. Jeff, best wishes to you. When you think about the franchisees right now, obviously they're all, as you said, the profitability is quite strong. What are they asking for right now? What do they think you need to do from an investment standpoint, aside from just the new product? As you implement more of this technology, is there a need to reassess the digital fee? Thank you.
Yeah. Brett, franchisee profitability, as I think we shared last time, 2019 was our strongest year. That has really continued through the course of the pandemic. Certainly, some franchisees see stronger profits than others, depending upon where you're located around the country, but continues to be very strong with the sales growth that we have seen. When you ask what franchisees are asking for? Well, I'll tell you, during the second quarter, it really was about helping them adapt to this new environment. We've been on a cadence of more frequent franchisee communication than we've probably ever had in the history of our brand, of really working together, literally day by day, hour by hour, to implement new operating procedures across the business.
Working together to implement new technology solutions to better enable these contactless experiences. Those were things that franchisees were craving and where we worked very hard to meet their needs and work together to get those things rolled out. As we look forward, we're going to continue to invest in tech across our business from the technology that you hold in your hand with your smartphone when you order from us, all the way through the store and how we run and operate our business inside the four walls of the box. That's going to continue to be a big focus for us and an area where our franchisees would love to have us continue to help them, when we think about how they continue to run efficient businesses and continue to drive their bottom line profitability.
If I could sneak in one other quick one. Where do you think you are on capacity within the supply chain, given that these are, as you said, unprecedented sales levels and just where do you think you are in terms of the existing-- You've already mentioned where you're building out. Thanks.
Yeah. I can tell you we're awfully glad that we had already opened our centers in New Jersey and that we got the center in South Carolina opened this year to help us keep up with all of this unprecedented demand. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to open in Katy, Texas later this year, and we're going to add some thin crust capacity to our system. We are continuing to look at our supply chain network. As we've talked about in the past, you should expect to see us continue to add centers over time, which is a great problem or opportunity, depending on however you want to describe it. We're going to have to continue to add more capacity to support our franchisees around the country.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jon Tower with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Great. Jeff, like everybody else, congratulations. Hope you have fun in, quote, unquote, "retirement" or whatever it is you decide to do next. I am curious, I know you guys aren't necessarily tied directly to any specific sports, but we are coming upon a season where pizza consumption seems to be a bit higher fall and winter than rest of year, and the sports schedule seems to be a bit up in the air. Can you discuss how you plan on attacking this during a period where viewing, particularly on the weekends, might be gone or significantly lower than it's been in years past?
Yeah, John, it is so hard to tell what's going to happen with respect to sports. For us, it doesn't matter if people are sitting in the stands at all. If it's on TV, people will gather and order pizza. From where we are today, here in the summer, I guess there's only upside as we look through the back half of the year, as sports come onto TV. It is remarkable what we find ourselves watching on TV now as we crave live action sports. I wish I knew John. I really wish I knew, and hopefully, we'll get back to more of a state of normal around some of those sports as we work through the fall and winter.
Just following up to your earlier comments, Ritch, on kind of the landscape, or at least real estate landscape potentially easing up a little bit in future windows. It does seem like the whole pizza category itself has thrived during the pandemic, both chain and independent. I'm curious to see or hear from you if you're actually seeing something else in the marketplace, perhaps how independents are faring versus the chains right now in the pizza category.
Yeah, John, what I would say is that, the stronger you were in digital and the stronger you were in off-prem, the better off you're doing. If you go down the scale on both of those two dimensions, I think, whether it's chains or independents, there's more of a struggle if you were weak in digital and weak in off-prem.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Charles with Cowen. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you. Just to echo everyone else, Jeff, it's been a pleasure working with you and wish you the best of luck in your next endeavor, and hopefully some time to enjoy the time off. I wanted to ask a question. Are you able to disclose how many active U.S. Piece of the Pie Rewards members you had at the end of the quarter? As you look globally, are there penetration levels that you've seen in some international markets on a per capita basis for the Piece of the Pie Rewards program that suggest there is more room for growth in this Piece of the Pie Rewards program? Especially opportunities obviously as well through conversion to make these users more active.
Hey, Andrew. We're not going to disclose today the number of active members. We do that about once a year or so, has been our past practice, and we'll stick with that. You talk about penetration in other markets. As we look across the globe, we're the number one pizza player in about half of the 90-odd international markets that we operate in. We have a number of markets where our share is significantly higher than the share that we hold in the U.S. business today. That is one of the things that continues to give us some confidence, that there's a big opportunity to continue to earn more business from the customers in the U.S. We still only serve about one out of every five QSR pizzas that are going to get eaten tonight.
Our share is significantly better than that in a number of the international markets around the globe, which gives us a lot of confidence.
Thank you.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Ritch Allison for any closing remarks.
Well, listen, thanks, everybody. It certainly has been an eventful Q2. We really appreciate all of you for joining us this morning. I'll offer one more time my thanks to Jeffrey Lawrence. Jeff, thank you for everything you've done for the business. I look forward to speaking with all of you in October, when we get together once again to discuss our third quarter 2020 results.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.