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Just Eat fattens sales outlook after orders lift

Just Eat boosted guidance after more customers ordered food online
Just Eat boosted guidance after more customers ordered food online

Online takeaways giant Just Eat today used upbeat six-month figures to raise its full-year sales guidance after a boom in customers ordering food at home.

It shrugged off a string of management changes to lift revenue guidance to between £500 million and £515 million from a range of £480 million to £495 million.

But investors fretted as profits are likely to be reinvested, sending the shares down 4% to 681p.

In the past six months, former chief executive David Buttress stepped down for family reasons and chairman John Hughes passed away after a short illness. Peter Plumb is joining as chief executive from Moneysupermarket.

Pre-tax profit rose to £49.5 million for the six months to June from £33.8 million on sales of £246.6 million. This was boosted by a 24% rise in orders to 80.4 million.

Interim chief executive Paul Harrison said: “Takeaways are part of the culture in the UK and we are finding new ways to make it easier for customers to order food from home.”

He is testing a robot in Greenwich which has delivered 1000 orders, and customers can now use Amazon’s Alexa device.