The American mobility multinational Uber announced on Tuesday losses of 8,530 million dollars between January and June 2022 (8,360 million euros), against profits of 1,036 million dollars that it had made at the same time. period of the previous year. The company explained that the losses include a pretax negative impact of $1.7 billion related to cumulative unrealized losses related to Uber’s stakes in Aurora, Grab and Zomato, as well as $470 million in compensation expenses in shares.
The turnover of the San Francisco (California, USA) company increased by 54% over one year, from 6,832 million between January and June 2021 to 14,927 million currently. The surprise came with second quarter sales, which exceeded forecasts despite the backdrop of inflation and the rising cost of living. Stocks react on Wall Street with an increase of more than 18%.
Uber more than doubled second-quarter sales to $8,073 million, up 105% from Bloomberg consensus estimates of $7,400 million. During the period, it recorded losses of 2,601 million in the second quarter of this year, compared to a net profit of 1,144 million in the same period of 2021.
In the statement provided by the company, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi does not refer to the quarter’s losses and prefers to focus on revenue: “Last quarter, I challenged our team to meet our profitability commitments even faster than expected, and they complied,” he noted.
The company recorded between April and June the first quarter with a positive cash flow in its history, 382 million dollars, after burning 25,000 million since its founding 13 years ago in its race for rapid international expansion, as the Financial Times reminds us. A fact that brought to light its chief financial officer, Nelson Chai, and which was significantly higher than the $109 million expected by analysts, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
According to Chai, “This marks a new phase for Uber: self-funding future growth with disciplined capital allocation, while maximizing long-term returns for shareholders.” “This is what every investor has been waiting for: for the company to finally achieve free cash flow profitability and, most importantly, maintain it,” said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Truist Securities.
The mobility platform had said earlier this year that it would limit spending to meet the goal of achieving free cash flow profitability by the end of 2022. This includes reducing driver incentives and slowing company hires. .
The company also said it offered 1.87 billion trips on the platform during the second quarter, up 9% from the previous quarter and 24% more than the year before. Uber reported that 122 million people use its platform each month, beating the 120.5 million analysts expected. This figure represents a 21% year-over-year increase.
For their part, drivers and food deliverers earned a total of $10.8 billion in the quarter, up 37% from a year ago.