German online takeaway food company Delivery Hero on Thursday reported stronger than expected growth for the fourth quarter, aided by strong order development and increasing basket size on its platform.

Its shares, which have fallen around 60% from their January 2021 highs as investors shunned food delivery stocks after the pandemic era frenzy, were up 5.7% by 0828 GMT, among top performers of Europe's benchmark STOXX 600 index. 

Gross merchandise value (GMV), a common metric for delivery firms measuring the total value of all goods sold, grew 8.2% to 12.81 billion euros ($13.37 billion) in the quarter, ahead of analysts' average forecast of 12.31 billion euros in a company provided poll.

The owner of Glovo also forecast GMV growth of 8% to 10% for 2025, compared with 8.3% constant currency growth last year.

"A solid set of results, in particular driven by MENA and LatAm," J.P.Morgan analysts said in a note to clients.

Delivery Hero reported a quarterly GMV of 3.7 billion euros in Middle East and Northern Africa, its second biggest market behind Asia, while recording 1.1 billion euros in the Americas region.

The company said in a separate statement that it planned to buy back around 1 billion euros of convertible bonds, using the proceeds from the Dubai IPO of its subsidiary Talabat , which earlier on Thursday reported a quarterly profit of $138 million.

($1 = 0.9581 euros)

(Reporting by Paolo Laudani and Linda Pasquini in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi)