Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021
Big profits for Hellofresh
Pandemic brings Dax contenders record year
Various delivery services benefit massively from the fact that people cannot shop in city centers or go to restaurants. So does Hellofresh. The cooking box provider will double its sales in 2020 and reap huge profits. Still, many investors are cautious.
The cook box mail order company Hellofresh supplies its customers with prepared, already measured ingredients and its own recipes – and has booked a record year due to the high demand during the Corona crisis. At 3.75 billion euros, sales more than doubled last year, announced the MDax company in Berlin. Business in the USA still accounts for more than half of total sales. The other markets are listed together as an international segment.
The Berlin company, which will be ten years old this year, is believed by experts to have a very good chance of climbing into the leading German index Dax, the composition of which will be decided that evening. In contrast to the Dax newcomer Delivery Hero, Hellofresh is now also writing a bottom line: After a loss of around seven million euros in the previous year, the group now earned a good 351 million euros. In the first year of the Corona crisis, Hellofresh recorded around 74.3 million orders worldwide, almost twice as many as in 2019.
Preparing and eating meals at home will have a new meaning in 2020, said CEO Dominik Richter. "While the pandemic will hopefully subside as the year progresses, we firmly believe that consumers will continue to use e-commerce solutions to shop for groceries." In the current year Hellofresh wants to convince more customers in its 14 existing markets, among other things with new brands. In addition, the group wants to open up two to three new countries. Hellofresh recently expanded to Sweden and Denmark. Experts speculated that it could go to Japan and Norway. The company is currently actively looking for new employees there.
Moderate outlook for 2021
In the long term, Hellofresh is committed to keeping customers interested through greater choice, faster deliveries and competitive prices. In Australia, where the corona pandemic hardly affects everyday life, Richter found that customers are now visiting restaurants more often and ordering a little less from Hellofresh.
That is why the company wants to position itself broadly in the long term and, according to Richter, become a "fully integrated food company". A first test is running in the Benelux with Hellofresh Market, where the company sells 70 different products from desserts to baked goods via its online platform. In the summer, Richter wants to reveal how things will continue.
Investors, however, remained skeptical. After a short pre-IPO jump up, the stock went downhill in early trading today. Most recently, the paper was quoted more than one and a half percent lower than the day before. This could be due to the moderate outlook compared to the previous record year, which Hellofresh is sticking to. In mid-December, the company raised its forecast for 2021: Sales in the current year should increase by 20 to 25 percent after adjusting for currency effects.
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