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Photographs of Michael M. Santiago / Getty
DorasDash
shares are trading much lower in late trading on Thursday after the food delivery company posted better-than-expected revenue for the fourth quarter, their first as a public company, but they offered profit management cautious that fell short of street speculations.
For the quarter, DoorDash (ticker: DASH) posted revenue of $ 970 million, up 226% from the previous quarter and ahead of Wall Street analyst consensus forecast of $ 938 million, as it continued the company is seeing major benefits from the locks triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Orders, at 273 million, went up 233%. Total order value, or GOV, was $ 8.2 billion, up 227%.
The company had a GAAP loss in the quarter of $ 312 million. On Ebitda’s modified basis (pre-interest earnings, taxes, depreciation, and depreciation), the company earned $ 94 million, $ 2 million ahead of street estimates.
The company issued guidance on two metrics for both the first quarter and 2021 as a whole.
For GOV, the company sees $ 8.6 billion to $ 9.1 billion for the quarter, ahead of the Street at $ 8.3 billion, and $ 30 billion to $ 33 billion for the year, a bit shy of consensus at $ 33.2 billion.
On a modified Ebitda basis, DoorDash sees first-quarter profits go from zero to $ 45 million, falling shy of street consensus at $ 71 million, and for the full year the company sees a profit range of zero to $ 200 million, below the Street at $ 246 million.
The company noted that the adoption of Proposition 22 in California will have an impact on first-quarter results – a step taken by voters that will allow drivers to stay as contractors rather than employees but give them new benefits, which including health care coverage. The company also has ongoing price controls in other markets. DoorDash said these factors will adversely affect both modified Ebitda and “flat rates,” a slice of all the business the company keeps after paying drivers and buyers.
DoorDash notes that the full-year guideline “expects the successful release of Covid-19 vaccines, among other things.”
It is also noteworthy that guidance assumes that “scale vaccination time” coincides with the second and third softer quarters. “As a result, our forecast assumes an ever-increasing customer churn, less order frequency at the organization level, and slightly lower average order values starting in Q2, ”the company said. “Because of this, our full-year 2021 guidance assumes that the GOV Marketplace in Q2 and Q3 will be below the levels we expect in Q1.”
DoorDash is in late trading down 10.9%, at $ 148.70. The company went public in December at $ 102 a share, opening for trading at $ 182.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]