Earnings Results: DoorDash stock surges as it reports record food-delivery orders but larger loss than expected

United States

DoorDash Inc. on Thursday reported continued growth in the second quarter, saying that its food-delivery business remains healthy despite economic uncertainty, but its loss was worse than what Wall Street expected.

DoorDash DASH, +2.34%, which completed its acquisition of Finland-based Wolt in the second quarter, beat revenue and other expectations with its earnings report, though the delivery-platform company posted a bigger loss than expected.

Ravi Inukonda, vice president of finance, said in a Thursday interview with MarketWatch that it’s “a very tough macro environment out there, but we’re coming off a record quarter in terms of orders.”

Gross order value grew to $ 13.1 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $ 12.84 billion. Total orders increased to 426 million, above the 419 million analysts expected.

Inukonda said he is confident that the company is well-positioned to deal with what he sees as softening consumer spending in the third quarter and the rest of the year, because DoorDash offers delivery from a range of categories that includes prepared food, convenience and more. In addition, he said he feels good about Wolt’s growth of 50% year over year, which he said is faster than its peers in the European region.

DoorDash shares surged more than 13% after hours, after rising more than 2% in the regular session to close at $ 81.29, near a three-month high. 

The company posted a loss of $ 263 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with a loss of $ 102 million, or 30 cents a share, in the year-ago period. DoorDash attributed $ 45 million of that loss to Wolt. Revenue rose to $ 1.6 billion from $ 1.24 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast a loss of $ 195 million, or 21 cents a share, on revenue of $ 1.52 billion. DoorDash does not provide adjusted earnings per share numbers, but some analysts estimate earnings on an adjusted basis.

Adjusted Ebitda was $ 103 million, lower than the $ 113 million in the same quarter last year, though above analysts’ expectation of $ 58 million. For DoorDash, Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excludes other items such as legal costs related to ongoing issues over worker classification, tax-collection costs and costs related to an intellectual-property settlement.

For the third quarter, DoorDash expects adjusted Ebitda of $ 25 million to $ 75 million, and marketplace gross order value of $ 13 billion to $ 13.5 billion. Analysts on average were forecasting adjusted Ebitda of $ 51 million and gross order value of $ 13.19 billion, and a loss of 22 cents a share on revenue of $ 1.58 billion.

For the second time this year, DoorDash raised full-year guidance for gross order volume, to a range of $ 51 billion to $ 53 billion. On the high end, that beats analysts’ expectation of $ 52.37 billion.

Shares of DoorDash have fallen more than 45% so far this year, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.08% has decreased about 13% over the same period.