Pizza Hut introduces moble ordering / iPhone nationwide

Pizza Hut has deployed a mobile ordering system that ratchets up thecompetition in the industry's battle to sell more pizzas using thelatest technology.
The unit of Yum Brands this week introduced new cell phone servicesthat let customers order from any of its 6,200 outlets nationwide viatext message or the mobile Web.
All the top U.S. pizza delivery chains--Domino's Pizza, Pizza Hut, andPapa John's International--have invested in online and mobile orderingas a way to boost sales in one of the restaurant industry's mostcompetitive segments.
"We wanted to provide <cnet:blog id="9849988">maximum accessibility</cnet:blog>,"Bernard Acoca, Pizza Hut's director of digital marketing, said onWednesday. "We have a core group of customers that is very tech-savvy.They use their phones for everything ... We want to be where theconsumers are."
Within five years, Pizza Hut aims to earn half its revenue from orders placed via computers and mobile phones, he said.

Pizza Hut is not the first to offer mobile ordering services, but theDallas-based company says its service is the broadest and mostcomprehensive.
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Domino's in September gave customers with Web-enabled phones the optionto place mobile orders at nearly half of its 5,100 U.S. restaurants.
"We're glad (Pizza Hut is) offering this. We think it's good for the pizza category," Papa John's spokesman Chris Sternberg.
In November, Papa John's was first to offer a text ordering option for customers at all of its 2,700-plus U.S. restaurants.
Sternberg said the third-largest pizza chain has offered, but notmarketed, mobile Web ordering for about two years. He said the servicehas been limited by older technology in many cell phones.
Papa John's was first to offer online ordering in 2001 and such orders now account for some 20 percent of sales, he said.
"Online users are the sweet spot now," said Sternberg, who said textmessaging will be the next big thing, led by people aged 14 to 25. "Wedefinitely think that's where folks are heading. We think we're on thefront end of the text wave."