Thanks to a cost-cutting program, Just Eat Takeaway reaches the profit zone earlier than expected

Despite a decline in orders in the fourth quarter, the operating profit for the full year 2022 will be around 16 million euros, the "Lieferando" parent company announced on Wednesday. In the current year, earnings are expected to rise to 225 million euros. In 2021, Europe's largest food delivery company had still made a loss of 350 million euros. Based on these surprisingly strong results, many industry experts are likely to raise their forecasts significantly, predicted analyst Giles Thorne from investment bank Jefferies.

In addition to savings, increased volumes and the resulting lower delivery costs per order contributed to this development, according to the information provided. However, due to the gloomy economic outlook and rising inflation, customers had placed fewer orders overall. The gross transaction volume on the platform fell by two percent to 7.11 billion euros. In the fourth quarter, the number of orders fell surprisingly sharply by twelve percent to 239.8 million.

The US division GrubHub recorded a drop of 16 percent. Against this backdrop, Just Eat Takeaway confirmed its plans for a "partial or complete" sale of this division. The company bought GrubHub in 2021 for 7.3 billion dollars.