Deliveroo orders more than double in latest lockdown
Food delivery company issues trading statement with shares about a third below the IPO price
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Deliveroo said its order volumes more than doubled to 71m in the first quarter, with customer numbers also increasing sharply, as the food delivery group attempts to win over investors after its disastrous initial public offering.
In its first trading statement since its shares tumbled after they began trading two weeks ago, Deliveroo said that growth accelerated for the fourth quarter in a row, with gross transaction value rising 130 per cent year on year to £1.65bn. GTV is primarily made up of customers’ spending, before sharing that income with restaurants and other partners.
The company’s monthly active customer base leapt 91 per cent to an average of 7.1m people.
Metrics disclosed on Thursday for the first time show that Deliveroo’s customers typically order 3.3 times a month, up from 3 times a year ago, before the pandemic hit. GTV per order — an indication of what many in the industry call “basket size” — rose 8 per cent year on year to £23.20.
Deliveroo however did not raise its guidance for the year, cautioning that it was “difficult to say how much of this growth has been driven by the special circumstances of the current lockdown restrictions in some of our markets”.
Deliveroo indicated in its IPO filings that it expected growth in gross transaction value to slow to between 30-40 per cent this year, after the pandemic drove 64 per cent growth last year, with gross margins at 7.5-8 per cent.
“We are mindful of the uncertain impact of the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions,” Will Shu, Deliveroo’s chief executive, said. “So while we are confident that our value proposition will continue to attract consumers, restaurants, grocers and riders throughout 2021, we are taking a prudent approach to our full-year guidance.”
Deliveroo is London’s biggest new listing in several years but investor appetite has been limited by concerns over corporate governance, regulatory risk and profitability. The stock was still trading almost a third below its IPO price on Wednesday ahead of the announcement.
Amsterdam-headquartered rival Just Eat Takeaway.com this week reported that gross merchandise volumes — a slightly different metric to Deliveroo’s GTV — increased 88 per cent to €4.5bn, including €1.4bn growing at the same rate in the UK, with total orders up 79 per cent to 200m.