BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Food delivery service Delivery Hero expects better business over the course of the year after a weak first quarter. Company CEO Niklas Östberg expects growth to accelerate from quarter to quarter. The figures and the forecast were not initially well received on the stock market. The share, which has been under pressure for several weeks, fell sharply in early trading on Thursday, but recovered by midday and even turned positive.

In the current year, the gross merchandise volume (GMV), which is important for the industry, is expected to rise by 5 to 7 percent after adjusting for exchange rate effects, the MDax-listed group announced in Berlin on Thursday. In the first three months of the year, gross merchandise value increased by 1.5 percent to 11.2 billion euros. Adjusted for the effects of the weak euro compared to the previous year, growth amounted to 2.1 percent.

Sales of the segments, adjusted for foreign exchange, increased by around twelve percent to just under 2.5 billion euros. Both figures were thus weaker than experts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected. In the current year, segment sales are expected to increase by around ten percent after adjusting for foreign exchange. Most recently, the company's Asian business in particular has been causing problems.

In the first quarter, the Group came very close to achieving its target of a positive margin as measured by operating profit as a percentage of gross merchandise value, with a figure of minus 0.1 percent. Östberg also expects a gradual improvement here and confirmed his forecast of plus 0.5 percent for the current year.

Östberg was optimistic about the coming months. "We are already seeing a promising start to the second quarter and expect growth to accelerate this year and beyond." He said there is still tremendous potential to drive the growth of the business in the coming years. To that end, he said he plans to grow the customer base and add new lines of business.

Delivery Hero's share price fell as much as seven percent to 30.40 euros in early trading, but made up for the losses by midday and was last trading at just under 33 euros, slightly more than the previous day. However, the stock has been under pressure for weeks. Since the interim high of just under 60 euros in February, the share price has fallen sharply.

The share price is still a long way from the record level of around 145 euros at the beginning of January 2021 - at the height of the Corona pandemic. After speculation at the time that sales would rise sharply, concerns about the sustainability of business growth and the question of profitability pushed the share price down to less than 24 euros just under a year ago.

Due to the decline in the share price, the stock was removed from the German benchmark index in June 2022. The stock had been included in this index in the summer of 2020 for the insolvent payment processor Wirecard. The promotion was controversial. Among other things, because Delivery Hero was not profitable. The group is still far from making a profit.

Last year, the company at least managed to reduce its operating loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), adjusted for special effects, by 41 percent to 467 million euros, according to final figures. This is according to the annual report also published on Thursday. This result corresponded to minus 1.1 percent of the gross value of goods. A year earlier, this margin had still been minus 2.4 percent.

Gross merchandise value increased by almost a third to almost 43 billion euros last year - without the Glovo acquisition, the increase would have been just under 26 percent. Total segment sales grew by 44 percent to 9.2 billion euros. Both figures were slightly below the key figures published in February. On balance, the Group made a loss of almost three billion euros, almost three times as much as in 2021, due among other things to significantly higher expenses and goodwill amortization./zb/stw/jha/