Just Eat Takeaway: Appetizing Forecast for 2024 Despite Challenges

After a mixed year, Just Eat Takeaway is setting bigger goals for 2024. The Dutch food delivery service forecasts an increased performance for the coming year by aiming for a pre-tax profit of about 450 million euros, which represents a considerable increase over the 324 million euros in the current fiscal year. Particularly encouraging is the predicted rise in gross transaction value by two to six percent—a metric that, however, excludes the North American business where the company continues to struggle. In contrast to rival Delivery Hero, Just Eat Takeaway presents a more conservative approach, which nevertheless meets with positive response from financial analysts, as the targets exceed expectations. Jitse Groen, the CEO, continues to grapple with loss-makers such as the business in Southern Europe, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in North America, which accounts for about 40 percent of global orders and has seen a significant decline in order volume. The noteworthy increase in operating profit is therefore primarily due to profitable areas like Northern Europe, Germany, and the United Kingdom and Ireland. Despite this confidence, Just Eat Takeaway concludes the year with a loss of about 1.8 billion euros. A result attributable to the impairments of past acquisitions, however, it represents an improvement over the previous year's loss of nearly 5.7 billion euros. The US subsidiary Grubhub remains a financial burden, for which a buyer has yet to be found, even though discussions are ongoing.