A DoorDash sign is pictured on a restaurant on the day they hold their IPO in New York, December 9, 2020.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
Shares of DoorDash popped 12% on Thursday after the company reported earnings that showed a record number of people placed orders in the fourth quarter.
The delivery company notched 369 million orders during the quarter, an increase of 35% year over year, and higher than the 361 million orders analysts’ expected, according to the Wednesday report.
Consumers also continued to spend more on orders. Gross order value expanded 36% year over year to $11.2 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s projected $10.6 billion.
Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $1.3 billion, beating analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. The company reported a 45-cent loss per diluted share, wider than the 25-cent loss figure collected by Refinitiv.
DoorDash benefited heavily from stay-at-home trends during the coronavirus pandemic, as many restaurants restricted indoor dining and consumers opted to order food in order to minimize exposure to the virus. Now, delivery companies are under pressure to prove they can sustain that demand as Covid-19 restrictions ease.
DoorDash’s full-year guidance suggested it doesn’t see momentum slowing down, however. The company projected marketplace gross order value to be in the range of $48 billion and $50 billion, which is in line with consensus estimates of $49.4 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.
“Overall, the underlying demand for DASH’s delivery offerings remains steady even as normalcy is slowly returning in many markets,” Wolfe Research analyst Deepak Mathivanan wrote in a note to clients Thursday. “The company is also making nice progress in scaling several [long-term] initiatives.”
Analysts noted that fourth-quarter adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was light. DoorDash has said it’s investing heavily in expanding into new categories and international markets.
“We believe DASH’s investments in growth opportunities — new verticals, services, and “geos”—being funded by profit from its core U.S. restaurant marketplace should be well received in a rising rate environment,” analysts at JPMorgan wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.
