Logistics company akeaway Deliveroo doubled the number of orders it received through its app in the first six months of the year.

The company said it took 148.8 million orders in the half-year, up from 74.5 million in the same period last year.

He also reported a doubling in the gross value of transactions, to nearly £ 3.4 billion.

The business was boosted by more than a year of intermittent lockdowns in the UK. As customers were unable to visit the restaurants, they ordered their food online instead.

However, Deliveroo said so far it has proven to be fairly immune to the end of the lockdown, with “no material impact” from reopening the UK in the second quarter of the year.

In accounting, any item having an effect of less than 1% on turnover can be considered as having no significant impact.

Managing Director Will Shu said, “We are seeing strong growth and strong engagement in our market as bottlenecks continue to ease.

“The demand is strong among consumers. We have grown our consumer base, seen people continue to order frequently, and we now work with more food merchants than any other platform in the UK. “

But Deliveroo said it won’t last forever, and the lockdown rebound is expected to ease in the second half of the year.

The company said it expects the gross value of transactions to increase by 50-60% this year, according to forecasts provided in July.

“As stated in our forecast, while we do expect consumer behavior to moderate later in the year, we remain excited about the opportunity ahead and our ability to capitalize on it,” said Shu.

The business is still in deficit but reduced the pre-tax loss from £ 128.4million to £ 104.8million over the period, for revenue of £ 922.5million, up by 82%.

It’s been less than five months since Deliveroo entered the market with a problematic float that saw its share price plummet.

The London-based company had hoped to sell shares for 390p each when it went public, but the market had other ideas.

In just a few weeks, the stock price hit a 225p low. He has since reclaimed much of that ground, but still lags behind the initial optimism.