Online takeaway service Just Eat serves up tasty results

Revenues at London-listed online takeaway service Just Eat rose 54 per cent to £107.8 million (€153m) in the first six months of the year, compared to £69.8 million a year earlier.

The company, which acts as a middleman between diners and restaurants, operates in 15 countries, including Ireland.

It reported a profit before tax of £14 million versus £8.6 million for the same period last year. Underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda) was up 62 per cent to £25.8 million for the six months ending June 30th, as against £15.9 million last year.

The group said orders rose 52 per cent to 41.9 million from 27.5 million with like-for-like orders up 47 per cent.

Basic earnings per share were up 42 per cent to 1.7 pence compared to 1.2 pence a year earlier.

Over 59,000 restaurants are signed up to Just Eat and it has over 11 million active users, up 59 per cent compared to June 2014 when it had 6.9 million customers.

The group said that it process orders worth more than £700 million in the first half versus £465 million last year. Orders carried out via mobile devices accounted for over 60 per cent of all transactions.

Just Eat did not provide figures for Ireland in its latest results.

Just-Eat.ie launched in Ireland in May 2008 and is now the third biggest market for the group. The company had more than 750,000 active site users in Ireland last year, and processed more than 150,000 orders per month.

The group currently employs about 40 people locally and has more than 1,700 restaurants signed up in Ireland.

In 2014 it received over 2 million orders in Ireland showing a 58 per cent year-on-year growth.

"Just Eat has made a very strong start to 2015, increasing the numbers of active users, takeaway restaurants and orders. We have seen the success of our ongoing strategy to reinvest profits above target to drive additional growth. I am particularly pleased to see the results of our mobile strategy which has already created a much improved experience for our app and mobile users," said chief executive David Buttress.

Just Eat, which started in Denmark but moved to London in 2006, raised £360 million when it floated last year.

The company said it expects full-year revenues for 2015 of around £230 million.