DoorDash reports its biggest quarter ever

San Francisco-based delivery service DoorDash reported its strongest quarterly performance ever, with dwindling losses and a spike in new orders, during its third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. 

The company announced a 24% jump in orders in Q3 to 543 million compared to the same period last year, boosting revenue 27% year over year to $2.2 billion.  

DoorDash’s marketplace GOV—the total dollar value of orders, including taxes, tips and fees—also increased 24% year over year for the third quarter to $16.8 billion, the company reported.  

Its GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net losses also shrank substantially during the quarter to $75 million, a fraction of the $296 million in losses reported in the third quarter of last year, and less than half of $172 million in losses in the previous quarter.  

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) reached an all-time high, jumping to $344 million, up from $87 million during the same period in 2022.  

“I think we saw a phenomenal quarter where, frankly, you know, every line of business has accelerated and grown and improved in its unit economics. And that's impressive, especially given the fact that we're a lot larger today than we were a quarter ago and certainly a year ago,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said during the earnings call. 

In addition to the strong growth of total orders and marketplace GOV, revenue growth was driven by improvements to efficiencies in logistics and a growth in advertising revenue, the company reported. 

Xu’s letter to investors noted that its newest customers are “highly engaged,” and retention of users is “the second highest” over the last seven years, trailing only behind the 2020 cohort of new users who joined during the COVID pandemic. 

This could be due in part to the company’s expansion into the grocery and convenience sectors, along with other verticals. Xu said during the earnings call that the company has grown to include more than 100,000 non-restaurant stores on the platform.  

“And when you look outside of restaurants and into the convenience or grocery or alcohol segments, almost half of new customers that come into the industry in the U.S. come to DoorDash first, and so that’s certainly adding in terms of selection,” he said.

He added that there is a “long runway” for growth in the company for not only its restaurant delivery service, but also its international business, grocery business and other channels.

Chief Financial Officer Ravi Inukonda said DoorDash is pleased with the success of its grocery business, and the company’s focus over the last couple of years has been on how to increase adoption and usage of the service, along with its other verticals.  

“Our GOV has doubled year on year,” he said. “If you look at that paired with the efficiency that you’ve seen in the business, we’ve driven a ton of efficiency across the business.”  

DoorDash’s delivery network, built originally for its restaurant business and its pre-existing customer base, has given the company a strategic advantage in entering the grocery sector, Inukonda said.  

“Our goal is to continue to invest behind improving selection, improving the product quality, because our strong belief is that this is going to be a strong long-term ROI-generating business for us,” he added.