Talabat Holding, the on-demand online ordering and delivery platform, reported strong first-quarter numbers for 2025, despite the period including the full month of Ramadan, which has traditionally seen lower food and beverage sales.
Gross Merchandising Value (GMV) grew 30 per cent for the period compared to Q1 2024 to reach US$2.1 billion. On a constant-currency basis, the GMV growth rate was 33 per cent.
Revenue grew 34 per cent to reach US$846 million (up 38 per cent on a constant-currency basis), while net income grew almost fourfold to US$103 million, or 4.9 per cent of GMV. Adjusting for material non-recurring items to allow for a like-for-like comparison, net income grew 24 per cent to US$99 million, or 4.8 per cent of GMV.
Adjusted EBITDA grew 34 per cent to US$140 million, or 6.7 per cent of GMV.
Geographies, as well as verticals contributed to talabat’s earnings. Top line growth and margin expansion rose across both GCC markets (UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) and non-GCC markets (Egypt, Jordan and Iraq). Both Food and Grocery & Retail (G&R) verticals also achieved impressive growth.
GMV geographical mix remained at 84 per cent GCC and 16 per cent non-GCC, just like the prior year.
The company said the results were supported by increased resilience to the impact of Ramadan, thanks in part to an expanding G&R vertical, which benefits from consumer behaviour trends during this period. It also admitted that “the results reflected prior-year impacts related to ongoing geopolitical developments in the region”, which had weighed on performance during Q1 2024.
Tomaso Rodriguez, Chief Executive Officer of talabat, commented: “We have had a strong start to the year, delivering excellent financial results that reflect the effectiveness of our strategy and execution.
“Our continued focus on enhancing the consumer value proposition, expanding across multiple verticals and deepening customer loyalty, is driving sustained growth. Notably, our Groceries and Retail vertical contributed approximately one-third of GMV when including instashop for the full quarter, reinforcing the opportunity in scaling this vertical further.
“We also saw our most successful launch yet of talabat pro, our premium subscription loyalty programme, in Egypt, marking an important milestone and strengthening our offering in one of our fastest-growing markets.
“We were equally pleased to welcome the instashop team into our operations in the first quarter. As a leading grocery delivery e-marketplace in MENA, instashop is a strong strategic fit for talabat, and aligns closely with our ambition to expand and integrate our ecosystem. In a scale-driven business like ours, we expect to realise meaningful cost synergies as integration progresses over the next few quarters.”
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