Woowa Brothers shifts to profit in 2022 on pandemic food delivery boom

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Woowa Brothers Corp., operator of the popular food delivery app Baedal Minjok, said Friday it shifted to a net profit in 2022 from a year earlier on increased demand for food delivery services during the pandemic.

The delivery app operator swung to a net profit of 275.8 billion won (US$212 million) in 2022 from a net loss of 141.5 billion won in 2021, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Woowa Brothers attributed its turnaround to the boost in demand for food delivery services during the pandemic.

The number of orders made on the Baedal Minjok app tripled from 2019 and reached over 1.1 billion last year, a company spokesperson said.

The total number of restaurants using the food delivery app also doubled during the same period, from around 136,000 in 2019 to over 300,000 in 2022, the company said.

Baedal Minjok is the No.1 food delivery app in South Korea, followed by GS Retail Co.’s Yogiyo app and Coupang Eats, the food delivery arm of e-commerce giant Coupang.

Berlin-based Delivery Hero took over Woowa Brothers in 2021 and currently owns an 89.44 percent stake in the company.

Woowa Brothers said its operating profit came to 424.1 billion won, compared with an operating loss of 75.7 billion won a year earlier. Sales grew 46.7 percent on-year to 2.9 trillion won.

Source: Yonhap News Agency