Uber more than doubles revenues to nearly $4bn after a dismal pandemic year
Uber is regaining much of the momentum it lost during the pandemic, announcing on Wednesday that its ride-hailing services saw a 105% increase and that revenue had more than doubled from this time last year.
Revenue for the company’s most recent financial quarter totaled $3.93bn, beating analysts’ expectations and signaling an emergence from the dismal conditions at the same point last year when the pandemic was keeping most people at home.
At the same time, Uber’s delivery service is still growing at an intense pace, indicating that some homebound habits may be here to stay, even though people are going out again.
Those two trends produced Uber’s best quarterly report since the pandemic clobbered the San Francisco company 17 months ago.
In an even more telling sign of progress, Uber provided 1.51bn rides during the quarter – an 105% increase from the same time last year. Despite that big jump, the total rides for the period were still roughly 10% below the number given at the same time two years ago, before the pandemic upended the economy.
Uber has invested heavily in delivery services to weather the pandemic. It is increasingly offering grocery delivery and bought alcohol delivery service Drizly in February after acquiring delivery rival Postmates in 2020.
The company’s ride-hailing revenue also more than doubled from last year to $1.62bn. Besides giving more rides than last year, Uber’s prices also have been rising.
That’s partly because the company finally is trying to turn a profit, but also because it’s paying drivers more as it tries to lure more of them back behind the wheel and responds to increasing pressure from governments around the world to boost their incomes.
Earlier this month, drivers in a number of major US cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco joined in a daylong strike protesting poor working conditions and calling for the ability to organize. Some drivers have characterized the record driver shortage, in which drivers are refusing to return, as a “silent strike”.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged in a call after earnings were released that in major markets such as San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, demand “continues to outpace supply” and prices and wait times “remain above our comfort level”.
He said Uber is continuing to offer incentives to bring more drivers to the platform. Last week the company announced it would offer free language courses to drivers through a partnership with Rosetta Stone.
The company said the numbers are beginning to rebound, with monthly active food delivery workers increasing by 420,000 from February to July and ride-hail driver supply increasing by 50% in that same time.
“The good news is drivers increasingly want to get back on the road,” said Khosrowshahi, adding that 90% of inactive drivers polled said they expect to come back eventually and 60% say they will come back in the next month.
In a sign of confidence, Khosrowshahi reiterated a previous goal that Uber will reach profitability as measured by an adjusted metric known as EBITDA, which excludes taxes and other costs, by the end of 2021.
Under that yardstick – which is closely watched by some investors – Uber lost $509m during the most recent quarter, down from a loss of $837m at the same time last year.
This pledge comes as Uber competitor Lyft announced in its own earnings it had hit that same milestone in the first quarter of 2021, turning a quarterly profit on the adjusted basis for the first time since its founding.
With its lagging profitability and the growing headwinds posed by new surge in coronavirus cases, shares of Uber Technologies fell about 6% in after-hours trading despite the generally upbeat earnings report.