"We were overwhelmed with the response, but now we are really starting to get some momentum with the franchises," said chief executive Tony Rafferty.

He said an internal target had been set of 175 franchises to be operating by August 2005.

"Currently we are opening at a rate of six per month, so we should easily surpass that figure," he said.

With the addition of the 10 new franchises, Printing.com now has 22 franchise outlets and 14 company-operated stores.

It has issued almost 1.9m extra ordinary shares to meet the increased investor demand.