Just Eat Takeaway lifts earnings guidance despite drop in orders

Just Eat Takeaway upped its guidance for full-year core profit on Wednesday and announced the launch of a share buyback, despite posting a decline in first-quarter orders.

The company said total orders in Q1 fell 14% to 228m, while total gross transaction value (GTV) was down 8% to €6.7bn.

Chief executive officer Jitse Groen said: "Just Eat Takeaway.com continues to recover from last year's deceleration, with the Northern Europe and the UK and Ireland segments leading the trend. While the year-on-year GTV decline in Q1 2023 is significant, the comparison is with the quarter with the second highest GTV of the pandemic."

Groen said the company’s efforts to improve profitability were running ahead of plan, allowing the group to upgrade its 2023 adjusted EBITDA target to around €275m from €225m previously.

The firm expects gross transaction value in a range of -4% to +2% year-on-year in 2023, with a return to growth skewed towards the end of the year. In addition, it now expects to turn free cash flow positive by mid-2024.

Just Eat also said on Wednesday that it was initiating a share buyback programme of up to €150m as a result of "the strong balance sheet and the increased visibility on free cash flow generation",