Is Uber still burning money?

So far this year, Uber has turned about a tenth of its revenue into free cash flow, while the equivalent number at DoorDash is 17%. But given that Uber burned around $23 billion in cash between its launch in 2009 and 2021, the recent financial performance counts as good news.



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Despite the record profit, Uber's $9.2 billion in revenue came short of consensus estimates, while its 14% year-over-year revenue growth was its weakest since Q1 2021. Even after its roughly 100% surge over the past year, Uber stock is still down roughly 20% from its early 2021 peak.

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But given that Uber burned around $23 billion in cash between its launch in 2009 and 2021, the recent financial performance counts as good news. It explains why Uber stock, which for most of its four-year time on the public market has traded below its IPO price of $45, is lately above water.

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Finally, a profit In Q2 2023, Uber's revenue totaled $9.23 billion, up 14% from $8.1 billion a year earlier. As we mentioned above, Uber finally turned an operating profit, reporting $326 million in Q2 compared to an operating loss of $713 million a year earlier.

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Uber posted a profit of $394 million during the second quarter, compared with a loss of $2.60 billion a year earlier. That came in better than the $18 million loss that analysts polled by FactSet had expected and was driven predominantly by its operating profit, which totaled $326 million.

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Uber loses an average of 58 cents per ride — and says it's ready to go public. Uber lost more than $3 billion in 2018 — or an average of 58 cents on each of its 5.2 billion rides last year. It could be more than a decade before the ride-sharing company turns a profit.

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At the time, Uber was not just one of the world's fastest-growing companies - it was one of the most controversial, dogged by court cases, allegations of sexual harassment, and data breach scandals. Eventually shareholders had enough, and Travis Kalanick was forced out in 2017.

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$31.5 billion. That's how much Uber lost from 2014 through Q1 2023, the Financial Times noted Tuesday.

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Its brand reputation score hit a low of -23.4 in 2018 following its worst year of controversies. And yet, Uber keeps coming out unscathed. Brand consideration has been on an upward trajectory going from a score of 4.9 in 2016 to 18.6 in 2022, according to YouGov data.

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“Since I started driving for Uber in 2014, the company has taken a bigger and bigger cut of each fare. Sometimes they take 50% of the fare the passenger pays,” said Samassa Tidiane, an Uber driver in New York City. “Everything comes out of drivers' pockets.

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While Uber diversified its business beyond ride-hailing by delivering meals and grocery items, Lyft never did. That arguably hurt the company earlier in the pandemic when fewer customers were traveling but more were ordering items online.

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Before the pandemic, Uber had far more rides, and worse margins. Uber has diseconomies of scale: when you lose money on every ride, adding more rides increases your losses, not your profits. Meanwhile, Lyft — Uber's also-ran competitor — saw its margins worsen over the same period.

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Over the past decade, the company has faced a litany of obstacles, including sexual harassment allegations, a slew of firings related to a workplace culture investigation, political pressure and tussles with regulators, just to name a few.

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Of course, some driver deactivations make sense. Uber and Lyft have both said it's their policy to fire drivers who are accused of assaulting or harassing drivers, and they both allude to cutting drivers with ratings below around a 4.5 or 4.6, which can weed out bad drivers.

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According to Uber's 2019 to 2020 safety report, there were 101 deaths that occurred in 91 fatal Uber accidents. Most of these collisions (32 percent) involved at least one speeding vehicle. The second highest cause was from alcohol-impaired drivers (23 percent).

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If there were rides being requested in an area of town with too few vehicles, Uber sent messages to drivers letting them know that there are potential riders in that area. This aerial view was known internally as “God View”.

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Uber is owned majorly by a group of institutional investors like Morgan Stanley, The Vanguard Group, and FMR. Individual investors, especially employees of the companies — like the CEO and the COO — own a significant part of the company. The current CEO of Uber company is Dara Khosrowshahi.

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On average, how much do Uber drivers get paid? On average, Uber drivers earn around $20 per hour. Uber drivers do not get salary pay; they are paid a percentage of each Uber ride that they fulfill. They keep 80% of the fare from each ride, while the other 20% goes back to Uber.

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The loss was better than Wall Street's projections. Lyft's recorded adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $41 million, better than analysts' forecast of $28 million. Lyft reported a loss of $196.3 million by that measure for the same period a year earlier.

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What happened? Well, as predicted, Uber didn't want to spend the $9 Billion that Lyft was asking for. In 2014, Uber tried to acquire the app with no success. Then, in 2019, Uber was prepared to buy Lyft for $7 Billion, but the ship had sailed, and Lyft rejected the idea, and instead stayed a separate entity.

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Uber Stock Price Forecast 2023-2024 Uber price started in 2023 at $33.73. Today, Uber traded at $48.32, so the price increased by 43% from the beginning of the year. The forecasted Uber price at the end of 2023 is $56.96 - and the year to year change +69%. The rise from today to year-end: +18%.

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