Jitse Groen, the head of Just Eat, has insisted that his company will remain the market leader in the UK
Credit: Fergus Burnett
Food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway has piled pressure on Deliveroo ahead of its rivals planned £8bn initial public offering as it revealed surging orders and widening losses.
The Anglo-Dutch firm claimed to be the “clear market leader” in Britain as global sales surged by 54pc to €2.4bn (£2.1bn).
Just Eat processed 179m orders in the UK last year — a 35pc annual increase, according to figures published on Monday. Domestic revenue also jumped by 42pc to €725m as demand for takeaway services swelled throughout the pandemic.
Losses rose to €151m from €115m a year earlier despite the newfound demand. The company said this was largely due to advisory and integration costs of Just Eat and Takeaway as well as costs associated with its proposed $7.3bn (£5.24bn) deal for US counterpart Grubhub.
The company said it processed 588 million orders throughout the course of last year, an annual increase of 42pc. UK orders were 88pc higher in the first two months of 2021, with delivery orders up by more than 600pc compared with a year earlier.
“Given recent trading and the investment programme, management expects to increase market share in the UK in 2021,” Just Eat said, stating that orders had already spiked 88pc in the opening two months of this year.
Jitse Groen, the chief executive of Just Eat, said 2020 had been an “exceptional year” for the company.
“Right before the completion of the merger between Just Eat and Takeaway.com, the world was hit by Covid-19,” he said.
“This brought unprecedented challenges to our restaurants, consumers as well as to our organisation and staff, but it also created tailwinds for our business.”
The statement of intent came days after its UK rival Deliveroo announced its intention to list next month. The company is likely to go public in an IPO that could value it at up to £8bn.
Despite this Mr Groen said Deliveroo could not “overtake someone that’s multiple times your size”.
In a series of tweets earlier in the week he also claimed his company had grown two times faster than Deliveroo last year.
“If a company is almost 3x your size and growing twice as fast, you are not going to beat that company,” he said.
During a call yesterday Mr Groen also wished Will Shu, the head of Deliveroo, well on his looming IPO.
Shares were up almost 4pc to £71.14 at 1.50pm
Fraser Thorne, the chief executive of Edison Group, said it was unsurprising the pandemic had driven such strong growth in orders.
“Yet, with Deliveroo currently in the process of listing on the main market, competition is fierce in the sector, and shares are essentially at the same price as they were 18 months ago,” he said.
“The company reported a bottom-line loss of £129.5m for 2020 compared to £98.5m over the previous 12 months, though this is partly due to it ploughing significant investment into its Just Eat business in the second half of the year, including doubling its sales force and carrying out a major marketing push featuring the likes of Snoop Dogg.”
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