Domino’s just revealed how it plans to win the pizza wars after Pizza Hut’s store closures—it’s good news for fast food lovers

If Domino’s earnings on Monday prove anything, it’s that people are still eating pizza—even if fast food sales, in general, are slumping.

“There seems to be a narrative out there that pizza is a challenged and declining category,” Domino’s CEO Russell Weiner said in an earnings call on Monday. “That is just not true, looking back to 2019, you’ll find a category that has generally grown approximately 1-2% each year, including last year 2025.” Weiner did, however, acknowledge the market was “mature.”

The pizza giant reported strong fourth-quarter earnings results, with revenue coming in at 1.54 billion, beating estimates of $1.52 billion. It also reported a 15% quarterly dividend hike, but missed earnings estimates, posting adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $5.35 for the fourth quarter, compared to estimates of $5.39.

The Ann-Arbor based company also said its New York Style Pizza and Parmesan Stuffed Crust were massive hits in 2025.

Shares of the Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) rose 6.4% in morning trading on the news, and were up 2.2% by early midday trading at the time of this writing.

“In 2025 we demonstrated that when we execute our Hungry for MORE strategy it delivers MORE sales, MORE stores, and MORE profits,” Weiner also said in an earnings release. Domino’s same-store sales in the U.S. grew 3.7% for the fourth quarter—a 3% growth for fiscal 2025.

In the earnings call, Domino’s chief financial officer Sandeep Reddy also mentioned how the company plans to capitalize on its competitor’s recent store closings.

“We opened 25 [stores] with a massive gap against all of our competitors including the bigger national competitors,” Reddy said. “Guess what’s happened since that time? One of our national competitors has announced that they’ve had a negative same store sales in the mid single digits. And they also talked about closing a number of stores up to 250 stores in the first half of the year.” (As Fast Company previously reported, Pizza Hut has said it is closing 250 restaurants this year.)

“All this plays into our strategy to continue to gain market share because we will go into that one to 2% growth in the industry with less doors outside, which we can actually take share from effectively and grab those sales,” Reddy added.

Meanwhile, good news for fast food lovers: Domino’s is also expanding quite a bit. The chain reported it opened over 700 stores globally and in the U.S. last year.

Founded in 1960, Domino’s Pizza is the largest pizza company in the world, with more than 22,100 stores in over 90 markets across the globe. It posted global retail sales of over $20.1 billion in 2025. The company had a market capitalization of $13.36 billion at the time of this writing.