GrubHub quarterly revenue beats as orders increase

[NEW YORK] Online food order and delivery company GrubHub Inc reported a better-than-expected quarterly revenue, as more diners used its services to place orders.

The company, which has a delivery network spread across 1,100 US cities as well as London, also forecast revenue of US$136 million-US$138 million for the current quarter, largely above analysts' average estimate of US$136.2 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The number of active diners rose 19.5 per cent to 7.7 million, the company said on Wednesday.

GrubHub has been fending off competition from the increasingly crowded food delivery industry from Yelp Inc, Postmates, Square Inc's Caviar, Amazon.com Inc's Prime service, Uber's UberEATS and the most recent entrant, Facebook Inc.

Net income attributable to shareholders rose to US$13.2 million, or 15 cents per share, in the third quarter ended Sept 30, from US$6.9 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, GrubHub earned 23 cents per share. Revenue rose 44.1 per cent to US$123.5 million.

Analysts were expecting revenue of US$118.45 on earnings of 19 cents per share.

REUTERS