DoorDash’s sales more than triple in Q4 due to pandemic

Meal delivery company DoorDash said its revenue more than tripled last year thanks to pandemic-driven demand, but it still lost money because it spent more heavily on marketing and expanding its business.

DoorDash reported a net loss of $312 million for the quarter that ended Dec. 31. The loss, of $2.67 per share, compared to a loss of $3.05 per share in the same quarter a year ago.

Wall Street had forecast DoorDash would post a fourth-quarter loss of 28 cents per share, according to analysts polled by FactSet. But their estimates had varied wildly. This was DoorDash’s first earning report since its initial public offering in December.

DoorDash said revenue jumped 226% to $970 million for the October-December period. That outpaced analysts’ forecasts. Total orders more than doubled to 273 million.

For the full year, DoorDash reported a net loss of $461 million. That was an improvement from a loss of $668 million in 2019.

San Francisco-based DoorDash, which was founded in 2013, has never made a full-year profit.

Its stock was down almost 13% in after-hours trading following the release of the earnings report.