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(Sharecast News) - HelloFresh tumbled on Friday as it warned on profits again, pointing to a weaker-than-expected third quarter.
The German meal-kit company said the back-to-school period did not deliver the volume of new customer acquisitions required to meet the latest outlook and the current market expectations for the 2026 full year and third quarter.
It put the underperformance in new customer acquisitions down to a drop in third-quarter marketing spend.
Consequently, the company now expects revenue to fall by 11% to 12% year-on-year in the third quarter, missing market expectations for a 6.8% decline. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for Q3 are expected to be around 45m to 55m, versus consensus expectations of 57.2m.
As a result, HelloFresh now expects full-year revenue to decline by between 9% and 11%, missing consensus expectations for a 6.9% fall and its own previous guidance for a decline at the bottom end of the range of 3% and 6%.
As far as adjusted EBITDA is concerned, the company expects between 350m and 370m, versus market consensus of 375.6m and HelloFresh's previous guidance of 375m to 425m.
At 1050 BST, the shares were down 9.3% at 2.30.
Angeline Ong, senior technical analyst at IG, said: "HelloFresh's fifth straight profit warning indicates a business model failure, not a bad quarter.
"The company's management cut marketing spend to protect its bottom line and it still missed on acquiring new customers badly enough to blow up revenue guidance by roughly double the prior range. Not a surprise given HelloFresh-type consumers are increasingly conscious about costs amid rising inflation pressures."
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