DoorDash said Wednesday it expects to spend more than $50 million in the second quarter on gas price relief for its delivery drivers.
The San Francisco-based company said in March that it would offer extra compensation to U.S. and Canadian drivers as part of a temporary program to offset a sharp increase in gas prices due to the Iran war. The national average for a gallon of gas on Wednesday was $4.53, up 44% from a year ago, according to AAA.
DoorDash said demand for deliveries remained strong in the January-March period despite higher gas prices, with total orders rising 27% to 933 million. That fell short of Wall Street’s forecast of 954 million, according to analysts polled by FactSet. DoorDash said winter storms closed businesses and dampened demand in some locations.
Revenue also fell short of expectations. DoorDash said its revenue rose 33% to $4.0 billion, which was shy of the $4.15 billion analysts were forecasting.
The company said it's paying for gas price relief by adjusting investments in other areas. DoorDash said in November that it would be spending heavily on new products and services this year, including the addition of restaurant reservations in its app and robot deliveries.
“We did have to push out some investments ... in order to make room for this,” DoorDash Chief Financial Officer Ravi Inukonda said during a conference call with investors. “If we do decide to extend the program, our goal is to find offsets.”
DoorDash said its net income fell 5% to $184 million, or 42 cents per share, for the January-March period. That was partly due to a 30% increase in research and development costs compared to the same period last year.
Still, that beat analysts' forecast of a 36-cent per share profit, according to FactSet.
DoorDash's shares rose more than 11% in after hours trading Wednesday.
DoorDash's earnings report came a week after rival Uber announced a deal with Expedia Group that will let users make hotel reservations through the Uber app.
When asked if DoorDash plans to add a similar service, DoorDash Co-founder and CEO Tony Xu said the company still sees plenty of room to grow its core area of restaurant and retail delivery.
“We are a tiny fraction of what’s actually available and addressable, which in some sense means that there’s a large runway and opportunity for us to become even better in breed in terms of what it is that we can offer,” he said. “And if we can keep doing that, I think we’re going to be just fine.”
FILE - A food delivery rider waits at a traffic light, March 30, 2020, in Lone Tree, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus unfolded over the course of weeks on a cruise ship that sailed from Argentina toward Antarctica and then across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at or near remote islands on the way as passengers and crew members fell sick, according to information from the cruise operator, the World Health Organization and ship tracking data.
It shows nearly a month passed between when an elderly Dutch man fell sick and died in the South Atlantic and laboratory tests in South Africa — more than 3,500 kilometers (2,174 miles) away — first confirmed hantavirus infections.
Three passengers have died, one is in intensive care in a South African hospital, and three others were evacuated from the ship Wednesday. Another man who left the ship earlier in the voyage tested positive in Switzerland.
More than 140 passengers and crew members were still on the MV Hondius ship as it departed the West African island nation of Cape Verde for Spain’s Canary Islands.
Tests on patients in South Africa and Switzerland showed it was a hantavirus found in South America, called the Andes virus, officials said.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though that is rare, according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.
As the number of confirmed infections increased to five, health authorities in three continents were investigating the source and tracing dozens of people who might have come in contact with passengers who left the ship earlier.
Oceanwide Expeditions, the Dutch company that operates the MV Hondius, offers “expedition cruises” that involve trips to the Antarctic and several islands in the South Atlantic to see some of the remotest places on Earth.
The cruises can last a month or more and cost between $6,000 and $25,000, depending on the cabin.
The Hondius set off from southern Argentina on April 1.
On April 6, the 70-year-old Dutch man fell ill with fever, headache and diarrhea, WHO said.
He died on board on April 11, after developing respiratory distress. The ship was between the British island territories of South Georgia and St. Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic, according to data from the ship tracking website MarineTraffic. The cause of death could not be determined, according to Oceanwide Expeditions.
The ship sailed on for nearly two weeks, stopping near the island of Tristan da Cunha before reaching St. Helena, where the Dutch man's body was removed on April 24. His 69-year-old wife disembarked.
The woman, who already had symptoms, became sicker during an April 25 flight to South Africa and collapsed at an airport there. She died at a hospital on April 26, WHO said.
The patient in Switzerland also disembarked in St. Helena, according to Swiss authorities, though his movements after that are not clear.
Another passenger, a British man, became sick on the ship after it left St. Helena and sailed to tiny Ascension Island, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north. He had a high fever, shortness of breath and signs of pneumonia, according to WHO, and was evacuated from Ascension Island to South Africa on April 27. He is in intensive care in South Africa.
The third fatality, a German woman, died on the ship on Saturday, again after it had set sail for a new destination — this time Cape Verde. She died four days after falling ill and also had signs of pneumonia, WHO said, which can be caused by hantavirus. Her body is still on the ship.
Health officials in South Africa tested the British man in intensive care for hantavirus after tests for other ailments were negative. They received a positive result for hantavirus on Saturday, 21 days after the first passenger died.
On Sunday, WHO announced it was investigating a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the ship, which had by that time reached Cape Verde waters.
The British man's positive test prompted South African health authorities to test the Dutch woman's body. That test came back positive on Monday.
Swiss authorities announced the positive test on the man there on Wednesday.
Contact tracing was underway.
After waiting off Cape Verde for three days, the ship headed to the Canary Islands, where Spain said it would accept it. People on board are from Britain, the United States, Spain, Netherlands, Germany and more than a dozen other countries.
Passengers and crew have been isolated in cabins with “physical distancing,” WHO said, in a lockdown reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHO says it is investigating how a virus that is relatively rare in people got aboard a cruise ship.
The Argentine government’s leading hypothesis is that the Dutch couple who died contracted the virus during a bird-watching outing in the city of Ushuaia before boarding, according to two investigators. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing.
Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
Medics escort a patients, evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship with suspected hantavirus infection, to an ambulance after being flown to Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Health workers in protective gear arrive to evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
The MV Hondius cruise ship departs the port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
A view of the inside of the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, a cruise ship carrying nearly 150 people as it remains off Cape Verde on Monday, May 4, 2026 after three passengers died and several others fell seriously ill in a suspected hantavirus outbreak. (Qasem Elhato via AP)
