Pizza Hut iPhone app reaches $1 million in sales

Dallas After its launch in the iTunes App Store just three months ago, the Pizza Hut App for the iPhone and iPod touch has garnered more than $1 million in sales.

Pizza Hut is the first national pizza chain to introduce an ordering app for the iPhone and iPod touch, and is approaching 1 million downloads.

When ordering pizzas, users virtually build their own pizza by choosing a type of crust in the scroll wheel, "pinching" to select size, and dragging-and-dropping toppings onto the pizza, all with visual confirmation. If an overeager pizza customer adds too many toppings, the pizza explodes and toppings go flying across the screen with an alert to make their pizza happier with fewer toppings.

The section used to order WingStreet wings starts with a bowl of wings that changes as users choose the type of wings they want. Next they select a sauce and are prompted to "sauce their wings" by shaking their iPhone or iPod touch until the wings are covered. Shake too long and the sauce flies across the screen. As with the pizza ordering, customers finish with a representation of the wings order.

Pizza Hut also has given consumers a way to pass the time as they wait for their order with a game called Pizza Hut Racer, in which users are challenged to deliver a pizza quickly while avoiding obstacles in the road.

Each time a user orders using the app they get 20% off their entire order.

"We are very excited to see our customers respond so positively to our Pizza Hut app," said Brian Niccol, Pizza Hut chief marketing officer. “Reaching one million dollars in sales with the app emphasizes the value of ordering innovation to our customers and how important it is for Pizza Hut to continue to create successful new ways to engage with them."