DoorDash on Wednesday reported growth in revenue and deliveries in its latest quarter, while warning that upcoming investments tied to a broader technology overhaul could weigh on results. The San Francisco-based delivery company said revenue rose 38% in the October-December period as it gained new U.S. customers and launched additional services, including restaurant reservations.
The company also reported that total orders increased 32% to 903 million, a figure it said beat analysts’ forecast of 884.8 million, according to FactSet. DoorDash said it had more than 56 million active users during the quarter, including 35 million members paying monthly fees through its DashPass, Wolt+ and Deliveroo Plus programs.
Despite the growth, DoorDash’s outlook came with a caution for investors. The company said it expects adjusted pretax earnings between $675 million and $775 million in the first quarter, which it described as lower than Wall Street was expecting; analysts polled by FactSet had projected $800.6 million.
In describing the gap between customer momentum and rising spending, DoorDash pointed to plans to unify technology across its markets after acquisitions. Tony Xu, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said DoorDash is in the midst of building a single tech platform intended to bring together its many international businesses, which include Wolt, acquired in 2022, and Deliveroo, acquired last year.
Xu said most of the platform will be completed this year, and he argued that once it is in place DoorDash will save money and time by rolling out updates across its markets at once. He also said the effort remains difficult in the near term, calling the new platform “a massive and expensive undertaking,” and adding: “I wish that the tech stack were already here,” during a conference call with investors Thursday.
Alongside the technology build, DoorDash said it invested heavily in additional delivery initiatives during the fourth quarter. The company reported that its research and development costs rose 41%, while sales and marketing costs jumped 31%, as it worked on projects including autonomous robot delivery and drone delivery.
DoorDash said net income rose 51% to $213 million, or 49 cents per share, which it said was below Wall Street’s profit expectation of 59 cents per share. Revenue for the fourth quarter came in at $3.96 billion, compared with analysts’ forecast of $3.99 billion, according to the FactSet figures cited by the company.
In addition to its financial results, DoorDash described shifting customer behavior that it said is expanding beyond mid-week ordering patterns. Xu said customers have “always” used DoorDash for quick, mid-week orders, but the company increasingly sees bigger weekend grocery trips, and DoorDash and Kroger, the largest U.S. grocery chain, expanded their delivery partnership last fall.