By Scott Kanowsky
Investing.com -- Just Eat Takeaway (AS:TKWY) reported better-than-anticipated second-half income and outlined upbeat 2023 guidance despite a cost-of-living crisis weighing on orders.
In a trading update on Wednesday, the Amsterdam-based firm posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in the final six months of the year of approximately €150 million (€1 = $1.0829), rebounding from a loss of €134M in the prior half, thanks to higher pricing and cost-cutting measures. Analysts at Citi said the result was "materially above" its expectations.
Just Eat also predicted that it will deliver positive adjusted core profit of about €225M in its next fiscal year.
"This guidance includes additional investments in food and non-food adjacencies and wage costs inflation, and takes into account an uncertain macro-economic environment," Just Eat added in a statement.
The Citi analysts noted that this outlook "could well prove conservative" given the improvement in Just Eat's profitability in the second half.
Shares in the company surged by more than 13% in early European trading, but remain down by over 49% during the last one-year period.
Despite the profit uptick, Just Eat received 239.8 million orders during the final three months of 2022, below analysts' estimates of 261.1 million. It was a fall of 12% compared to the same period last year, when orders had been boosted heavily by a surge in demand from shut-in consumers during the pandemic.
Orders slipped in all four of Just Eat's operating regions on an annual basis, reflecting weakness in demand from consumers dealing with a recent spike in inflation. However, with the exception of Australia, New Zealand, and southern Europe, three of these regions saw orders grow sequentially from August.
Meanwhile, gross transaction value - a measure of the total dollar value of the orders placed on Just Eat's platform - dropped by 2.1% year-on-year to €7.11B, missing expectations.