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Uber Lost $800 Million In Third Quarter (cnbc.com)
According to a report from The Information (Warning: paywalled), Uber has lost more than $800 million in the third quarter. CNBC reports: The results, The Information reported, put Uber on pace to record an 25 percent steeper operating loss than last year, of at least $2.8 billion in 2016, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. Despite steep results from one of the world's most valuable start-ups, these results would have been worse if not for a one-time windfall thanks to the sale of Uber's China business to Didi Chuxing, The Information reported. On the bright side, Uber's revenue is skyrocketing, and its rate of losses slowed from the prior quarter, The Information said. Still, the report comes as Uber's multi-billion dollar valuation has come under scrutiny from those who say its business model depends on subsidies and faces looming battles over regulation.
Imagine what they would lose if they had to face the same regulation and oversight as everybody else in the Taxi industry.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Indeed, AC.
I never lost my sanity.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Went to Las Vegas this summer. Payed $12 for a shuttle ride to my hotel. Buy the ticket, wait 8 minutes on the bus for it to fill, then we take off and stop at two other hotels before we arrive at mine. On the trip back, my buddy gets an Uber. Three of us ride the same distance for a total of $7. I don't see how anyone can be making money at that low of a price.
I don't understand how the sale of Uber China can make the results look better. The proceeds of a "windfall" should not be included in operating profit/loss. I'm guessing this means the China business was a major contributor to the losses. Perhaps the paywalled article explains it better.
Those of us who have been through dotcom 1.0's boom and bust know that there are patterns here - high stock valuations, no profitability, no real exit strategy, and hope of acquisition. What makes this time a bit different is that the ethics of the businesses are pretty challenged this time around.
With Uber, you get a company that knows it gets a free ride (no pun intended) on the people who sacrifice their personal vehicles' wear and tear that won't be fully covered by the money they receive, is schizophrenic when it comes to its disposition on whether its drivers are employees or contractors, fails to impose safety standards and inspections of both vehicles and people, actively encourages people breaking the law by not requiring their drivers to have commercial insurance policies on their vehicles and acting as a taxi company, and pretending to be an insurance company in violation of law by claiming they will self-insure for a million dollars of public liability without a certificate from the respective insurance commissions of the states they do business in.
Revenue growth isn't hard when you throw enough resources at something. A million average people will happily pick up something cheap or free and easy no matter whose expense its at. Profit growth is an entirely different animal. I believe when the legal chickens come home to roost, Uber will come out to be made out to be one of the biggest boondoggles in the latest dotcom boom. These days, there's a type of challenged ethics pervading the corporate culture of the new boom where people just go break the law and hope that things will sort themselves out. In the long run, it isn't the smartest business strategy in the world, and it isn't just Uber - and yes, I'm looking at you Theranos and Magic Leap. Even when the companies are legitimate, it seems the premiums people pay for them are ludicrous and defy the most basic business analysis of recovery of investment in a profitable way. I can't imagine this will all end well even if the magnitude of the failures are masked by inflation and currency devaluation.
Too bad they are not a taxi company, they could ring the Lost & Found department.
Imagine what they would lose if they had to face the same regulation and oversight as everybody else in the Taxi industry.
A lot less probably because nobody would loan them the money to do that.
Never tear down a fence until you are absolutely certain why it was built in the first place.
Who gives a shit about ever making a profit?
The investors. Sooner or later they will give a shit. Nobody, not even Amazon can lose money forever without consequences.
Uber is not a tech or a transportation company.
Hogwash. They are a taxi service. Nothing more, nothing less. Their money comes from taxi fares so that is what they are. They make good use of tech but that doesn't make them a tech company, it makes them a tech savvy taxi company.
They are a lobbying company.
That might have some validity if they actually received money from lobbying. Any lobbying they do is to facilitate their business model but it isn't the core of what they do. Anyway mostly they just enter a market and completely ignore whatever laws are there rather than lobbying to get them changed into their favor. That's not lobbying unless you have a very twisted definition of the term.
isn't it like 10 minutes or less from the strip to the airport? say 5 round trips an hour at $14 each round trip. $7 there and back for different people is $70 an hour before expenses. not too bad.
It's something like 10 minutes each way. I've taken the ride from the Strip to McCarran airport. That would be 3 round trips per hour presuming there is zero time waiting between trips, which is an unrealistic assumption. It's also unrealistic to assume there would be a paying fare for every leg of those trips. So in an unrealistic best case scenario you are talking about $42/hour ($7/trip * 6 trips). More realistically it would probably be closer to half that. S20/hour is roughly $40K/year assuming an 8 hour work day and 240 working days per year. Then take off the cost of fuel, insurance, maintenance, taxes, Uber's cut of the fare, etc and you're probably lucky to clear $20K/year for what really is kind of a shitty and boring job.
You mean facts like this: Uber had GAAP losses of $2 billion on revenue of $1.4 billion, a negative 143% profit margin. https://ftalphaville.ft.com/20...
You guys don't know what you are talking about. The current trip price is $21.22 from the airport to the strip.
Uber prices fluctuate. It's quite possible a $7 fare was what was charged for that particular trip. I merely took his numbers and pointed out that his assumptions about profitability were unrealistic.
So based on your numbers it would be $21.22/trip * 6 trips which is $126/hr.
It isn't $126/hour unless you make some very unrealistic assumptions and there is plenty of data out there indicating that Uber drivers don't make anywhere near that kind of money. You apparently didn't pay attention to that. I'm not saying someone can't make a living as an Uber driver. Just that they probably aren't going to get rich doing it. Uber drivers make $20-$25/hour. Not bad but that is around $40-50K/year and no where close to the quarter million you are implying. And Uber doesn't pay for car maintenance, car payments, fuel, etc so the real number is going to be considerably less.
That is more than YOU make, even after taking out expenses.
You have no idea what I make. I can assure you that I make more than an Uber driver. If I didn't I would be an Uber driver.
Uber also pays bonuses based on number of trips. Uber drivers aren't stupid. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable.
Being profitable doesn't mean they are making a killing.
Their net revenue rate was 240% this year. Yes, eventually they can reach $2B per quarter. It might take a few years.
Or the fact that their net revenue rate was 240% this year. Oh wait, I am a "troll".
WTF is "net revenue rate"?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Net revenue growth as a percentage. Lets just say their net revenue is growing very very fast. Somehow I think the people who are investing in Uber know more than the average Slashdotter about investing.
It's only that to you. It certainly isn't a standard phrase.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Their net revenue growth rate was 240% this year. Got it? Great. Stick to IT.
One of the things that appeared during the last few bubbles were various non-GAAP measurements of revenue, profitability, etc. that startups published to show their progress. It's very interesting to see that they weren't able to use these tricks^Wtechniques to paper over the losses they're making trying to get to a massive market share. It makes sense -- they seem to have the public on their side willing to throw out all the taxi regulations in the name of disruption. If they can get all the rules repealed, or write new ones that favor them, then long term it will work out even If they give away rides for less than cost. They just have to keep the VCs on the hook and paying money to fill the lobbyists' brown paper bags.
I took a couple of accounting classes in college back in the Dark Ages, and things like revenue recognition, cost of goods sold, etc. were very straightforward back then. The classic examples of a business were a manufacturer who buys raw materials and pays employees to turn out a value-added good that's sold at retail, or a professional charging an hourly or job-based rate for services. Now so many US companies are just pass-through entities charging a markup for services, or software companies not selling a product per se, or both. It makes it much more difficult to understand the company's finances, and I'm sure they prefer it that way so they don't have to explain uncomfortable things to investors, or just say "this time it's different", etc.
As for Uber themselves, I really don't like the fact that they choose to walk in and declare that the rules don't apply to them. The business owners' cries of crippling regulation ring quite hollow to me. In addition to protecting the public, I feel regulations balance the power that businesses have over ordinary workers and consumers. If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to hear real world examples of regulations that are "unbearable" for the typical small business owner. I feel it's just people complaining needlessly -- no one likes paying fees, taxes, etc. But be careful what you wish for -- without rules businesses will once again be allowed to sell unsafe products with no recourse or charge whatever they want for products without regard to all consumers' ability to pay.
The same way you can use credit cards to go even further into debt once your student loans run out.
...er, what does Uber (the corporation) actually spend money on to the tune of $800 million?
It's not like they're running the cars themselves - the owners pay for that.
I mean, their revenue trail seems pretty simple:
Inflow:
1) payments from users
Outflow
A) payments to drivers (should be entirely covered by 1, with some left over) and
B) maintaining the app & corporate overhead (salaries, etc for non-revenue-generating positions like accountants)
-Styopa
Where are they spending all the money? They really just need a pile of servers and couple dozen coders to develop the system and perhaps couple admins to keep it running.
- Raynet --> .
Automated cars operating illegally - check
Breaking traffic laws - check
Running over cyclists in rich tech cities resulting in billion dollar lawsuits - check
Top execs about to be jailed - check
Yup. Bankrupt.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
At least here in LA, pretty much all of the Uber (Lyft, etc) drivers are among the worst driver on the road. Barely adhering even to the simplest traffic rules and the audacity to threaten you when you complain that they are sitting in a red curbed bus stop zone (clearly stating "No Stopping" in white letters on top of it) holding up public transit. No, this is not a single occurrence with a single driver, it's at least 80% of them, I experience this EVERY SINGLE DAY...