Online food delivery service Just Eat Takeaway.com reported a 25% rise in third quarter orders to 266 million, missing analysts’ estimates of 287 million.
Gross transaction value was €6.8bn, up 23% from last year. Growth in Britain, the company’s largest market was 51%, but weakest in the US, its second-largest, at just 3%.
“With most of the world returning to pre-pandemic life, our growth in the third quarter of 2021 has remained strong. Just Eat Takeaway.com is well-positioned for autumn and winter, our traditional growth season,” said chief executive Jitse Groen.
Takeaway completed its $7.3bn acquisition of US peer GrubHub in June and said it had started “an improvement programme re-focusing the company on GrubHub’s strongholds”.
GrubHub in August was hit when New York City, its largest US market, capped commissions it and rival companies could charge restaurants to use their platforms at 15% of food orders for delivery.
The company repeated full-year forecast for a core earnings loss of 1%-1.5% on a gross transaction value of €28bn – 30bn for 2021, or a loss of €280m – 380m.
Order growth, excluding Grubhub, was forecast to be above 45% year-on-year.
