Instacart CEO Rogers calls grocery competition fears ‘overblown’

Instacartshares increased by over 7 percent company‘s strong results eased concerns about increasing competitive pressures in the grocery delivery market.

CEO Chris Rogers, who took over last year, said concerns were “overblown” during an earnings call with analysts and said the company was monitoring threats “extremely closely.”

“There is definitely a market for us here and we feel good about our points of differentiation,” he said.

Instacart faces an increasingly competitive market as retailers choose Amazon and food platforms Uber eats and Door Panel Aggressively scale grocery delivery. The company is also investing in new technology and artificial intelligence tools to attract more customers and businesses to its platform.

Wall Street analysts saw Instacart’s results as a wave of confidence for those worried about the company’s moat. Analysts at Bernstein called the report a “solid rebuttal” to competitive pressures and AI threats.

“Clean strike-raise is a rarity in this internet earnings cycle, and CART stands out in this regard,” analysts at Barclays wrote.

The San Francisco-based company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue and said gross transaction value (GTV) rose 14%, representing its strongest quarterly growth in three years.

Orders totaled 89.5 million, exceeding StreetAccount’s forecast of 87.8 million.

Instacart also issued an optimistic forecast, calling for GTV in the $10.13 billion to $10.28 billion range versus StreetAccount’s $9.97 billion forecast.

The company expects earnings of $280 million to $290 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, versus expectations of $277 million.