Rivals blamed as Just Eat is hit by slowdown in order numbers

The City caught a bout of indigestion over Just Eat today as the online takeaway firm disappointed the market with slowing orders.

The number of customers hitting their smartphone to order up grub rose 36% last year, but that wasn’t enough to whet the appetite of company watchers hoping for an upgrade.

Just Eat’s shares sank 42.7p, or 7%, to 540.3p.

Sources close to the firm said that a slowing from the 46% growth enjoyed in 2015 is inevitable as the business matures but analysts are also worried about rivals eating into its market share.

Credit Suisse analyst Joseph Barnet-Lamb said: “Overall we see the group’s UK performance as solid and group level performance as good. Having said that, we do not believe that this will ‘put to bed’ competitive threats in the space as a re-acceleration of growth could have done.”

The firm now has 27,000 restaurants on its books in the UK and nearly 70,000 worldwide.

It spent £266 million on HungryHouse and Canada’s SkipTheDishes last month.