Pizza delivery firm Domino's says online sales now average �50,000 per week in the UK and Ireland.

Domino's Pizza launched interactive television ordering via BSkyB's satellite-based Open TV service in the autumn and internet ordering at Christmas.

Take-up of both methods of ordering has been swift, with interactive television in particular helping total sales pass �1m.

A spokeswoman said that orders via TV - using a remote control - were running three times higher than those via the internet.

She said this was because watching TV was more of a leisure and communal activity than surfing the internet on a PC, and so more suited to ordering of pizzas.

A third of total

Orders via TV and the net now regularly represent 3% of weekly sales.

It aims to sell one-third of its pizzas through either the internet or interactive television within 10 years.

It says the value of orders place via interactive TV is larger than those placed over the phone, a difference it attributes to the menu looking more mouth-watering on screen than on paper.

It expects to see a fast rise in interactive TV sales as more homes get access to its ordering services, with deals signed to join cable interactive shopping services.

The e-pizza sales helped pre-tax profits for the 26 weeks to 25 June rise to �1m from �349,000 last year. Turnover rose to �14.5m, up from �12m.

Royalties

Domino's said it had increased the number of stores by 24 in the past 12 months, bringing the total UK and Ireland chain to 206.

Chairman Colin Halpern said: "Domino's Pizza in the UK and Ireland is already close to surpassing several goals we didn't plan to reach before the end of this year."

This included opening corporately owned stores, as opposed to merely receiving royalties from franchisees.

The company, which floated last November, delivered its first pizza in Britain in 1985 and is the London stock market-listed offshoot of the privately owned US pizza delivery chain.