Maplebear Earnings: Instacart Market Leadership Remains, but DoorDash and Uber Are Looming

We are maintaining our $33 fair value estimate on Maplebear, which does business as Instacart. The firm reported solid fourth-quarter results with strong growth in orders accompanied by a slight increase in order value. We were slightly disappointed with advertising revenue growth that trailed the overall digital advertising market. In addition, increasing incentives to consumers, which may signal the lack of a network effect, pressured the take rate a bit. Significant improvement in consumer acquisition cost is unlikely and a better take rate is likely to be accompanied by higher marketing spending. Instacart must keep aggressively spending to attract and retain consumers given the increasing presence of DoorDash and Uber.