LONDON (Alliance News) - Just Eat PLC on Wednesday swung to a profit for its recently-ended financial year as revenue rose and administrative costs dipped.
Furthermore, the FTSE 250-listed online takeaway platform sees revenue rising at least 28% to hit the GBP1 billion mark in 2019.
Just Eat shares were trading down 3.0% at 756.60 pence each early Wednesday morning.
For 2018, Just Eat posted a pretax profit of GBP101.7 million compared to a GBP76.0 million loss the year prior.
Revenue rose 43% to GBP779.5 million from GBP546.3 million, while administrative expenses were cut back to GBP452.3 million from GBP522.2 million the year before.
By geography, in the UK, its core market, Just Eat saw revenue up 27% to GBP385.6 million with 12.2 million active customers and 122.8 million orders in the year, despite "exceptionally hot weather" in July and August.
In Canada, where Just Eat operates the SkipTheDishes business, revenue multiplied to GBP177.9 million from j ust GBP62.3 million last year, while Australia & New Zealand was flat at GBP46.7 million as the company focused on delivery integration.
Meanwhile, International revenue increased 31% to GBP169.3 million, driven by strong order growth in Italy, Spain and France. The International business saw 8.0 million active customers and recorded 54.7 million orders.
"Just Eat's continued strong growth and strategic investments saw more than four million new customers join us in 2018. We are creating a leading hybrid offering founded on our unrivalled marketplace, combined with the targeted roll-out of delivery," Interim Chief Executive Officer Peter Duffy said.
Looking ahead, Just Eat expects revenue between GBP1.0 billion and GBP1.1 billion in 2019 and underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in a range of GBP185 million and GBP205 million.
For 2018, underlying Ebitda rose 6% on last year to GBP173.9 million.
This earnings guidance for 2019 excludes Brazil and Mexico, which together are expected to post Ebitda losses between GBP80 million and GBP100 million.
"In 2019, we will leverage the improvements we have made in our marketplace business to drive order and revenue growth, while we now also expect to grow marketplace underlying Ebitda margins year on year," the company added.
Just Eat also expects its Canadian operations to report its first full year adjusted Ebitda profit, "demonstrating the route to profitability for delivery".
