DoorDash (DASH) - 2025 Morgan Stanley Europe TMT Conference
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DoorDash, Inc. — Morgan Stanley Europe TMT Conference Presentation
Date: November 13, 2025
Participants:
Ravi Inukonda — Chief Financial Officer
Brian Nowak — Morgan Stanley Research (Moderator)
Additional Unnamed Analyst
1. SUMMARY OF RECENT RESULTS & CORE BUSINESS TRENDS
• Strongest core performance to date
“The core business is doing really, really well. It’s as strong as it’s ever been.”
Growth accelerated for the fourth straight quarter and U.S. business is “much larger than a year ago.”
Restaurant business and new verticals both accelerated.
• Strong user and engagement momentum
“More number of monthly active users in the first 9 months… twice the number compared to 12 months of last year.”
Order frequency “continuing to grow at the same time.”
• Cohort strength
Older cohorts are “engaging better” and newer cohorts also engaging more.
Retention advantage vs peers is emphasized repeatedly.
• No unique Q3 event — long-term compounding strategy
Performance driven by years of incremental product quality, selection, and affordability improvements.
Company reinvests efficiency dollars because “that drives more profit dollars in the future.”
2. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
• Dollar profits rising consistently
Core business is “increasing overall profit dollars” even while reinvesting heavily.
• Investment cadence consistent with past years
DoorDash has historically invested “several hundred million more than the prior year,” citing 2020–2024 as precedent.
• Reinvestment philosophy:
Every incremental dollar of efficiency triggers a decision to reinvest vs harvest margins.
Current view: highest IRR comes from reinvesting.
• Rue acquisition performing above expectations
“Top line is doing better than what we expected when we underwrote the deal.”
Margin and profit guidance unchanged — in line with underwriting.
3. GUIDANCE, OUTLOOK & FUTURE TRENDS
• Tech replatforming to deliver returns starting 2026–2030
First modules go live in 2026; meaningful improvements accumulate over time.
IRR expected through:
unified engineering resources
faster product velocity
native AI capabilities
Benefits appear modularly, not all at once.
Company designing now to drive “profitability in 2029 and 2030.”
• DashPass and Wolt+ subscription momentum remains strong
DashPass: “record quarter and record year.”
Wolt+ adoption faster than early DashPass because of playbook reuse.
• Industry demand stable
Contradiction between weak results for certain restaurant chains vs strong delivery explained by:
consumer preference for selection
affordability improvements
category-specific underperformance
4. PRODUCT, PLATFORM & AI TRENDS
• Product quality remains a key differentiator
“Orders are much faster… fewer missing items… fewer defect rates.”
Retention advantages attributed directly to these improvements.
• Native AI infrastructure across the entire platform
Today each team builds AI separately; new platform unifies ML + personalization.
Will speed up:
experiment cycles
personalization
development velocity
ML model deployment
AI native replatform is one of the three major investment buckets.
• Agentic experiences:
DoorDash comfortable with third-party AI agents (GPT, Gemini) as traffic-generators, not threats.
“Ultimately, it’s another traffic-generating channel for us.”
Emphasizes the physical component (logistics, inventory accuracy, mapping) as defensible advantage.
5. INTERNATIONAL & RUE / WOLT TRENDS
• Rue top-line exceeding expectations
Strong demand momentum enabling further investment.
Significant product improvement opportunity: selection, affordability, quality.
Ability to deploy Dash/Wolt playbooks into Rue markets.
• Learnings from less successful markets (e.g., Japan, Australia)
Each country has “local nuances.”
Uniform insight: feature velocity and product improvement is the lever that moves retention and order frequency.
• Wolt+ subscription adoption outpacing early DashPass
Driven by learnings from U.S. playbook.
6. CAPITAL ALLOCATION & INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY (Required Section)
• Three major investment buckets
Tech replatforming (largest)
Running old + new stacks in parallel for stability.
Long-term consolidation reduces cost.
Native AI and multi-data-center redundancy built in.
Software
Key focus: 7Rooms integration.
Investments in sales, marketing, product upgrades.
New reservations marketplace launched one month ago.
Autonomy
First-party SDOT vehicle + third-party (Wing drones, Serve Robotics, Coco).
Multi-modality approach: air + land, 1P + 3P.
• Reinvestment over near-term profitability
Examining every dollar of efficiency: “Do we let that drop to the bottom line or invest back?”
Will continue reinvesting due to high IRR and long runway.
7. EXPENSE, HEADCOUNT & INVESTMENT TREND THEMES
• Elevated R&D / platform investment
Parallel tech stacks increase infrastructure costs temporarily.
Redundancy (multiple data centers) also increases spend near term.
Unified engineering stack expected to reduce headcount duplication long-term.
• Autonomy spend scaling gradually
Starts with small teams (“One Pizza team”), expands based on milestone progress.
8. COMPETITION & MACRO / DEMAND TRENDS
• Core differentiators vs peers:
Higher retention
Higher quality (fewer missing items, cancellations, defects)
Faster feature rollout (post-platform unification)
• Restaurant industry macro:
Weaker results at some chains likely company-specific, not industry-wide.
Mid-market brands performing well.
Platforms benefit from consumer preference for variety and convenience.
10 INTERESTING / NOTABLE QUOTES
“The core business is doing really, really well. It’s as strong as it’s ever been.”
“We’ve added twice the number of monthly active users in 9 months compared to all of last year.”
“This business is not about acquiring consumers, it’s all about retaining consumers because retention is the only thing that compounds over time.”
“When we generate a dollar of efficiency… the best use of that dollar is to put it back because that drives more profit dollars in the future.”
“Orders are much faster than a year ago. There are fewer missing items and fewer defect rates.”
“We are replatforming our underlying tech infrastructure… the larger portion of our investment.”
“The new platform natively comes with AI capabilities… speeding up development and personalization.”
“Autonomy requires different modalities — both land and air — and both first- and third-party solutions.”
“DashPass had a record quarter and a record year… older cohorts are engaging more.”
“Rue top line is doing better than what we expected when we underwrote the deal.”
Q&A SUMMARY
Q: Morgan Stanley (Brian Nowak) — Strength in U.S. business; what is driving acceleration?
A: Core business is at peak strength; growth accelerated for 4 straight quarters; restaurants + new verticals both accelerated; MAUs doubled vs last year; retention advantage; years of product improvement compounding.
Q: Which app improvements exceeded expectations?
A: Not one thing — improvements in selection, quality, affordability. Quality is underappreciated: faster orders, fewer missing items → retention gains.
Q: What are the 3 investment buckets and scale?
A: 1) Tech replatforming (largest), 2) Software (7Rooms + digital ordering), 3) Autonomy. Investments not new; DoorDash adds “several hundred million” annually historically.
Q: When will tech stack IRR show up — 2028–2029?
A: Benefits arrive modularly; first modules launch in 2026; foundational work done in 2025.
Q: What is the goal of software (POS, 7Rooms)?
A: Merchant services focus. Help restaurants run their businesses better with table mgmt + CRM + marketing + digital ordering.
Q: DashMart’s role?
A: Not incremental investment. Built initially to address grocery quality gaps; now increasingly used as fulfillment by grocers.
Q: How close is “Saturday morning grocery agent” AI vision?
A: Personalization is priority; native AI infra helps. But physical delivery quality remains crucial. Demand-generation agents are fine; DoorDash focuses on digital + physical execution.
Q: Competitive risks of GPT/Gemini agents?
A: Viewed as additional channels; DoorDash confident its delivery infrastructure and quality are differentiators.
Q: Autonomy vision?
A: Build autonomous delivery platform across modalities (air + land); deploy 1P SDOT + multiple 3P partners.
Q: Rue learnings and early surprises?
A: No major surprises; top line outperforming underwriting; large product improvement runway; leveraging Wolt experience in Europe.
Q: DashPass global performance?
A: Record year; retention rising; Wolt+ adoption faster than early DashPass growth.
Q: Where can U.S. restaurants still grow?
A: Quality improvements (defect reduction), selection expansion, affordability, frequency growth, user growth — order frequency still “mid-single digits per month,” far from ceiling.
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