DOORDASH SEES RECORD ORDERS AND USERS, BUT LOSSES GROW

DoorDash said Thursday that it saw a record number of orders and active users in the fourth quarter as it expanded overseas and gained market share at home.

The San Francisco-based delivery company said its monthly active users grew 28 percent to a record 34 million during the October-December period. DashPass members — who pay $9.99 per month for free delivery on most orders — grew 50 percent to 15 million.

DoorDash’s gross order value — or the total of all orders on its platform — rose 29 percent to an alltime high of $14.4 billion. That beat Wall Street’s forecast of $14 billion, according to analysts polled by

FactSet.

Some of that growth came from Wolt Enterprises, the Finnish delivery service DoorDash acquired last year for $8.1 billion. Wolt operates in 22 countries where DoorDash previously had no presence, including Germany, Sweden, Hungary and Israel.

But Ravi Inukonda, DoorDash’s vice president of finance — who was named chief financial officer on Thursday — said DoorDash is also growing in the U.S., where its market share has climbed to near 60 percent. Excluding Wolt, DoorDash’s gross order value rose 20 percent to $13.4 billion.

Inukonda said DoorDash has confidence in its outlook this year because the company has grown despite inflation and economic headwinds. DoorDash expects gross order value between $60 billion and $63 billion this year, up from $53.4 billion in 2022.

“Food is relatively inelastic. People need to do that grocery shopping,” he said. “And we have a product and service that people love.”

Total orders grew 27 percent to 467 million. That beat Wall Street’s forecast of 459 million, according to analysts polled by FactSet. Fourth quarter revenue jumped 40 percent to $1.82 billion, also ahead of analysts’ forecast of $1.77 billion.

But profits remain elusive for the 10-year-old company. DoorDash said its net loss widened to $640 million, or $1.65 per share, as it expanded into new categories — like a recently announced partnership with the beauty product store Sephora — and integrated Wolt into its operations.

Wall Street had expected a loss of 67 cents per share.

DoorDash’s stock-based compensation costs rose and its research and development costs nearly doubled in the fourth quarter. Its net income was also impacted by restructuring charges. The company announced in December that it was laying off 1,250 workers — or 6 percent of its workforce — because it hired too many people when sales surged during the pandemic.