British food delivery company Deliveroo said it was expanding into non-food retail, betting on toys, electronics and other goods to help drive growth, after it reiterated 2023 profit guidance.
The group, which competes with Just Eat Takeaway.com and Uber Eats in markets in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, said it had launched "Deliveroo Shopping" on its app, which will allow customers to buy non-food items, including D.I.Y. products through a partnership with hardware supplier Screwfix.
New Categories
By expanding into the new categories, Deliveroo, which has 162,000 restaurants and 20,000 grocery sites on its platform and operates a network of delivery riders, will increasingly find itself in competition with its shareholder Amazon.
The US company holds a 14.13% stake.
Medium Term
In the medium term, Deliveroo said it expected its gross value transaction (GTV) to grow by a mid-teens percentage each year, and reiterated its expectation that its earnings margin as a percentage of GTV would come in at over 4% by 2026.
"There continues to be significant headroom for growth," Deliveroo's chief executive Will Shu said in a statement ahead of an investor day on Wednesday.
For its 2023 full-year, the company said it continued to expect adjusted core earnings between £60 million (€69.3 million ) and £80 million (€92.4 million) .
Deliveroo Riders
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom's Supreme Court ruled that Deliveroo's riders cannot be represented by a trade union for the purposes of collective bargaining.
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) had tried to represent a group of Deliveroo riders in order to negotiate pay and conditions with the company.
Supreme Court
The union was first refused permission in 2017 on the basis that riders were not 'workers' under UK labour law and it has since mounted a number of appeals.
The IWGB took its case to the UK's highest court in April, arguing that it was an unlawful interference with riders' human rights to deny the IWGB's application to be recognised by Deliveroo for collective bargaining.
But the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the IWGB's appeal.
'Positive Judgment'
A Deliveroo spokesperson said: "UK courts repeatedly and at every level have confirmed that Deliveroo riders are self-employed, and this now includes the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country.
"This is a positive judgment for Deliveroo riders, who value the flexibility that self-employed work offers."
