Just Eat Q1 order growth weakens, shares fall

Just Eat (LON:JE) reported its results for the first quarter of the year on Friday, blaming warmer weather for slower UK order growth.

The online delivery platform said group orders during the three months to March-end increased by 21% to 61.4 million on a like for like basis.

UK orders increased by 7.4% to 31.9 million. Just Eat said UK growth had been impacted by warmer February weather alongside Easter falling completely.

The firm said it expects growth in the UK to improve during the remainder of the year.

Elsewhere, orders grew by 40% to 29.5 million, boosted in particular by a strong performance in Canada, Italy, Switzerland and Ireland.

Just Eat said that Canada continued to be the ‘standout performer’, with SkipTheDishes on track to turn its first profit.

The company has retained its full-year guidance £1.0-1.1 billion and underlying EBITDA in the range of £185 million-205 million, excluding Brazil and Mexico.

Just Eat has been affected by the rise of rival delivery services such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo. 

Peter Duffy, Interim CEO, commented on the latest results:

“Just Eat is on the right path to be the leading hybrid marketplace for online food delivery and we are confident in the delivery of our strategy. Many of our international markets have performed very well in the period although, as expected, we saw softer UK order growth in the quarter. We are making good progress and continue to execute at pace.”

Shares in Just Eat (LON:JE) are currently down -3.39% as of 10:36AM (GMT).