FTSE 100: Just Eat Takeaway narrows losses despite order numbers fall
Just Eat Takeaway (TKWY.AS) suffered a drop in orders for the first half of the year as a pandemic-fuelled boom in demand faded.
Europe's largest meal delivery company reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of negative €134m (£112m, $136.2m), compared with a loss of €189m in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue for the period was €2.78bn compared with €1.77bn for the same period in 2021.
Total orders fell 7% in the first half of 2022 due to the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns and fewer people ordering food to their homes.
Revenue in the UK and Ireland climbed 13% amid a push to improve profits from individual food sales.
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Gross transaction value (GTV) — a key metric for the industry — came in at €14.19bn compared with €14.12bn a year earlier.
Just Eat Takeaway's shares are down more than 60% this year, but were up 3% on Wednesday.
The company said its “path to profitability is accelerating” as it strives to swing into profit as a top priority in 2022.
But the takeaway company took a €3bn impairment charge as it wrote down the value of its US subsidiary Grubhub, which it bought in 2021.
In July, it announced that Amazon (AMZN) would take a stake in the businesses and Prime subscribers in the US would get free Grubhub+ membership for a year.
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Just Eat forked out €414m on marketing in the first six months of 2022, a 40% increase on last year, following the Grubhub acquisition and launching a costly advertising campaign with singer Katy Perry.
Just Eat said on Wednesday that it is still assessing the financial impact of the deal.
Chief executive Jitse Groen said: “After a period of exceptional growth, Just Eat Takeaway.com is now two times larger than it was pre-pandemic.
“Whilst this growth required significant investment, we have continued to focus on executing our strategy to build and operate highly profitable food delivery businesses.”