Uber says its growth in 2016 sales outpaces loss

Uber Technologies isn’t required to report its finances publicly, but the privately held company has decided to forgo that luxury for the first time. Uber said its revenue growth is outpacing losses, hoping to show the business is strong as it attempts to address a recent cascade of scandals.

The San Francisco ride-hailing giant said it more than doubled gross bookings in 2016 to $20 billion. Net revenue was $6.5 billion, while the adjusted net loss was $2.8 billion, not counting the China business, which it sold last summer.

Uber declined to report first-quarter numbers, saying they were in line with expectations but that it hasn’t yet presented them to investors. The company said it’s pleased to see revenue growth far exceeding losses last year, and that its business is perform-

ing well this year even as it faces unyielding controversy. “We’re fortunate to have a healthy and growing business, giving us the room to make the changes we know are needed on management and accountability, our culture and organization, and our relationship with drivers,” Rachel Holt, who runs Uber’s U.S. ride-hailing business, said in an email.

Uber has seen an exodus of top executives recently as it investigates claims of sexual harassment and a toxic work culture. It is facing a lawsuit over self-driving car technology from Waymo, backtracked on a program called Greyball that was used to deceive government officials, and apologized after CEO Travis Kalanick was recorded arguing with a driver. Kalanick has said he’s seeking a chief operating officer to help right the ship.

Uber’s business is getting bigger. In the last three months of 2016, gross bookings increased 28 percent from the previous quarter to $6.9 billion. The company generated $2.9 billion in revenue, a 74 percent increase from the third quarter. Losses rose 6.1 percent to $991 million.

While the growth is encouraging, Uber is losing a significant sum, said Evan Rawley, a business professor at Columbia University. “That’s a lot of cash to burn in a quarter,” he said.

Uber said it uses generally accepted accounting principles. Revenue includes only the portion Uber takes from fares, except in the case of its carpooling service; the company counts the entire amount of an UberPool fare as revenue. The more Uber’s business shifts to the multipassenger service, the faster revenue grows. The loss statement doesn’t account for employee stock compensation, certain real estate investments, automobile purchases and other expenses.

Valued at $69 billion by investors, Uber operates in about 75 countries. The company was spending aggressively to compete in China, with about $1 billion in losses there last year, bringing its losses to $3.8 billion globally. It sold the China business in August to Didi Chuxing, receiving an 18 percent stake in the Chinese company. Uber recognized the value of those shares in its financial statement, saying global net losses were $1.2 billion after accounting for the sale, taxes and other factors.

Since it was founded in 2009, Uber has burned through at least $8 billion. The company said it has $7 billion of cash on hand, and $2.3 billion in untapped credit.

Lyft, which is Uber’s main competitor in the U.S., is also closely held and doesn’t disclose financial performance. It’s difficult to compare Uber’s business with any public company. Uber partly models itself after Amazon.com, but even at the peak of the dot-com boom, Amazon lost less than $2 billion. Amazon has never lost more than that in a year. Chipmakers Qualcomm and Micron Technology, which require large capital investments, never lost that much.

“Uber is a one-of-a-kind company, in good ways and bad ways. It’s going to be a case study,” said Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University. “This is a cash-burning machine.”