Delivery Hero Food Orders Almost Double During Lockdown

(Bloomberg) -- Delivery Hero SE, the German food delivery company, said orders rose 92% in the first quarter, nearly doubling from a year earlier as customers were forced to stay home and order takeout online.

Revenue also rose 92% to 515 million euros ($557 million) in the quarter from a year earlier, Delivery Hero said in a statement on Tuesday. The company said it expects to keep winning new customers for the rest of the year as people who are stuck at home are more likely to try its service for restaurant and grocery deliveries.

Key Insights

• The company said it dealt with an initial negative effect from the pandemic and accompanying lockdown by adding more than 50,000 new restaurants and 1,500 grocery stores in the last three weeks of March, and left its outlook unchanged.
• Sales had more than doubled in the previous period leading Chief Executive Officer Niklas Ostberg to say that the Covid-19 outbreak would have a positive impact on the company in the short-term.
• Now it looks like the Berlin-based firm may also be seeing long-term benefits as lockdowns mean than new types of customers are willing to try online delivery services.

Woowa Deal

• The company said it still plans to close its deal for control of South Korea’s biggest food delivery app Woowa Brothers Corp. in the second half of the year.
• Delivery Hero announced in December it would take a majority stake in Woowa Brothers at a $4 billion valuation in a massive push into Asia.
• It’s part of a wave of consolidation in the food-delivery industry. Amazon.com Inc.’s purchase of a stake in Deliveroo got approval by U.K. competition regulators earlier this month, who acknowledged it needed a cash injection to avoid going bust. Takeaway.com’s $8 billion deal for Just Eat Plc was approved less than a week later.

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