15th Apr 2021 08:06
(Alliance News) -Â Deliveroo PLC on Thursday maintained its full-year guidance after a sharp acceleration in orders in the first quarter, cautiously eyeing a relaxation of lockdown rules ahead.
The food delivery platform, in its maiden trading update as a London-listed company, said it made "significant progress" in the first quarter ended March 31, with total orders more than doubling to 71 million from 33 million.
Deliveroo's IPO, so far, has flopped on arrival. Deliveroo priced its IPO shares at 390 pence, but the stock closed at just 270.20p on Wednesday, down 31% from the IPO price. The stock was 2.4% lower at 263.76p in early trade.
Conditional dealings in Deliveroo started at the end of March and unconditional dealings began last week.
Gross transaction value also shot up in the first quarter, at GBP1.65 billion versus just GBP715 million a year ago. Gross transaction value per order rose 8% to GBP23.2 from GBP21.5.
In the UK & Ireland, orders surged to 34 million in the recent quarter from 15 million a year ago, which Deliveroo said was driven by new customers. As at the end of the quarter, Deliveroo said its geographic coverage has reached over 60% of the UK population, adding over 6 million people - with a target of reaching two thirds of the population by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the international segment also saw orders more than double to 37 million from 18 million.
"Since Q1 2020, the International portfolio has experienced a variety of different lockdown restrictions at various times. While this has had an uneven impact on individual country year-over-year growth rates throughout our portfolio, the 24% growth experienced in Q1 2021 from Q4 2020 shows the strong momentum in the segment.
Deliveroo maintained its guidance as it awaits "further information on consumer behavior post-Covid", targeting full-year annual gross transaction value growth of between 30% to 40% and gross profit margins of 7.5% to 8.0%.
"Deliveroo's Q1 growth across monthly active consumers, orders and GTV was very strong. It is 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," the company said.
Deliveroo expects the rate of growth to decelerate as lockdowns ease, but the extent of the deceleration remains "uncertain".
Deliveroo Founder & Chief Executive Will Shu said: "This is our fourth consecutive quarter of accelerating growth, but we are mindful of the uncertain impact of the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions. 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."
By Lucy Heming;Â [email protected]
Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Deliveroo