Grubhub Orders Fall 13% Amid Company’s Cost-Cutting Measures

Grubhub continues to see its order volume decline by double digits, even as its unit economics improve.

The aggregator’s parent company, Just Eat Takeaway.com, reported its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings results Wednesday (Jan. 17). The company’s North American business, of which Grubhub comprises the majority, saw orders fall 13% year over year to 67 million and saw gross transaction value (GTV) decline by 15%.

Orders in the segment were even down from just a few months before, declining by 1.5 million relative to the previous quarter. GTV, meanwhile, increased slightly from Q3 (about 0.4%).

“If you look at the U.S., we’ve made some difficult decisions that you’ve seen in the last year,” Just Eat Takeaway.com CEO Jitse Groen told analysts on an earnings call Wednesday. “We’re cutting costs over there to make sure that our cash burn in the U.S. goes to zero as rapidly as possible. … At the same time, of course, we’re also trying to improve their business. But we’ve significantly reduced the cash flow.”

He noted that the company has been “working hard on improving the unit economics” of the business in the U.S. The move to focus on cutting costs and improving efficiency, rather than on driving adoption and working toward long-term growth, comes as Just Eat Takeaway “continues to actively explore the partial or full sale of Grubhub,” per the earnings release, as it has been doing for years now.

“There can be no certainty that any such strategic actions will be agreed or what the timing of such agreements will be,” the company stated.

Meanwhile, competitors continue to grow their use and market share. DoorDash, for instance, reported 24% year-over-year growth in total orders in the third quarter on its last earnings call in November, and marketplace gross order value (GOV) grew by the same percentage.

Uber shared on its third-quarter earnings call in November that delivery gross bookings were up 18% year over year, and delivery revenue was up 21%.

DoorDash and Uber Eats are ahead of Grubhub as far as adoption among aggregator customers. PYMNTS Intelligence from the Connected Dining series, for which PYMNTS surveyed thousands of consumers about their restaurant ordering habits, revealed that as of June, 77% of aggregator users reported that they were DoorDash customers. In contrast, 49% of aggregator users reported ordering from Uber Eats in June, and 35% said the same about Grubhub. The report also revealed that aggregator users’ adoption of DoorDash was on the rise, while that of Uber Eats and Grubhub was on the decline.

Additionally, Uber Eats and DoorDash are performing better overall than the Just Eat Takeaway.com subsidiary. PYMNTS’ Provider Ranking of Aggregators, which compares leading players based on factors including use data, channel coverage and downloads, has Uber Eats at No. 2, with 84 points, DoorDash at No. 9, with 65, and Grubhub at No. 15, with 45 points.

Further Connected Dining research found that 5% of restaurant customers placed their last order via an aggregator.