13 ms·

$708 million loss, narrowed from $991 million last quarter 18% growth from last quarter (note: that's not Y/Y. this is ridiculously fast, given the huge base.

• lettergram 9y ago
  > Uber is doing fine. Yes and no, they are in a space which is extremely price competitive. I literally am watching Uber take a dramatic hit in my area right now. Lyft came to town and probably 80% of the drivers solely use them now, driving up the Uber prices. Now, I only use Lyft - as do most of the people. Plus, most of the Uber drivers are shady here and the people think Ubers a snaky company. I realize this is ancidotal, but everywhere I go (I travel a lot, switching between Uber and lyft), Lyft seems to be more popular among drivers and riders. They simply don't use it because of price/market share. However, adjust the price or driver's and the equation changes. I honestly still don't see them making it out of their situation.
  • inverse_pi 9y ago
    Uber is doing fine where I live. No one is using Lyft here. Also this https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/
  • chenster 9y ago
    > Now, I only use Lyft - as do most of the people. Plus, most of the Uber drivers are shady here and the people think Ubers a snaky company. Why's that?
  • Taylor_OD 9y ago
    It's really hard to look at ride sharing apps without being clouded by your own experience. There are likely other people in your town/city who would say most people use uber and 80% of the drivers only drive for uber. It's a weirdly personal experience so its hard to see other peoples point of view which is why we have to rely on statistics like this one that show what's going on without personal experience getting in the way.
  • cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
    > Now, I only use Lyft - as do most of the people. Nope.
  • threeseed 9y ago
    > Lyft came to town and probably 80% of the drivers solely use them now, driving up the Uber prices. Where is this and what facts is this number based on ? In Australia for example Lyft is simply non existent. And sure it's a smaller market but it demonstrates that Uber's aggressive international expansion strategy is the right one. > Plus, most of the Uber drivers are shady Pretty libellous, ridiculous and unfair thing to say.
    • ubernostrum 9y ago
      it demonstrates that Uber's aggressive international expansion strategy is the right one. Does it? "We lose money on every customer, but we'll make it up in volume" is one of the classic ways to run a business into bankruptcy. Sometimes, taking one's time is the far sounder strategy, even if a hyper-growth competitor is "everywhere" and "dominating" in the eyes of the uninformed public.
      • resf 9y ago
        They clearly have different objectives. Uber wants to be a huge multinational company, whereas Lyft can only hope to win the US market. In other words, even Lyft's best case scenario would be a huge step down for Uber.
        • ubernostrum 9y ago
          No amount of "we were briefly a huge multinational" will compensate for a fundamentally unsound business. Sooner or later the free money is going to run out and Uber is going to have to stop hemorrhaging nearly a billion dollars every quarter. When that day comes they're not going to have a lot of options to stop the bleeding: raising prices and cutting back the markets they operate in are likely to be the first things they do, or are forced to do by investors. Meanwhile, the way you build a huge multinational is by first figuring out a way to make money and then scaling it to everywhere, not by figuring out how to be everywhere and then realizing "crap, we have to actually turn a profit now".
          • 9y ago
  • BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    > Now, I only use Lyft - as do most of the people. Define most people. As far as I could tell Uber has a far bigger user base and market share. So I'm not sure how Lyft could suddenly be used the most. During the whole #DeleteUber protest it took longer to get an Uber at my house in the bay area. Lyft was quicker for about two weeks. Then it shifted back. Now I can't get a Lyft in under 20 minutes whereas Uber is usually 5-8 minutes away. My experience is anecdotal but I see no evidence to suggest yours was not as well. If there is something showing Lyft taking over a larger slice of the pie then please post it.
    • wapz 9y ago
      > Lyft came to town Sounds like the parent is referring to his/her town. It's still anecdotal because surely the parent doesn't have that statistic but it very well may be the case in his/her town.
      • BinaryIdiot 9y ago
        Hmm. Fair enough, assumed new context from paragraph. Regardless some data would be interesting here as I experienced seemingly the exact opposite. Lyft is essentially useless in my part of the bay area.
  • skinnymuch 9y ago
    I'm not buying that most people use Lyft in your area - passengers or drivers. I believe you think that and your circle of people may also be doing the same, but beyond that, I'm guessing there's a lot of bias. Especially if you're saying everywhere you go Lyft seems to be more popular among riders. It's just not true at all. For my own anecdote, I'd bet 75% of my FB friends with smartphones within my age range, 21-40, have Uber on their phone or have only ridden Uber. And a fraction of them will have Lyft. Among people I actually know, this is roughly the case, with Lyft being a bit more popular, but that's because of who I am/surround myself with.
    • lelandbatey 9y ago
      As long as we're sharing anecdotes, most of the people I know, parents and young kids included, have made the switch to Lyft starting about 8 months ago. They seem to be the less evil company, so people enjoy working for and using them.
      • rtx 9y ago
        Most of my family and friends exclusively use Uber because of Travis and his values.
        • jacobsimon 9y ago
          lol
        • amaks 9y ago
          What values?
          • rtx 9y ago
            Libertarian
            • AlexandrB 9y ago
              So money, gotcha.
  • nunez 9y ago
    Uber has a solid worldwide presence. Lyft does not. You can go into nearly any state and most countries (I think all of the first world countries and a bunch of second world ones too) and book an Uber. As long as that stays true and Uber continues to grow outside of the US, Lyft doesn't stand a chance. If Lyft could light up worldwide scale right now, they absolutely would have. Something is holding them back. It's likely new rideshare laws that Uber spawned due to it having first mover advantage. Disclosure: I am a Lyft user and deleted my Uber account.
    • jv22222 9y ago
      > As long as that stays true and Uber continues to grow outside of the US, Lyft doesn't stand a chance. Well, except they do because the local market is simply huge. There is room for multiple competitors. Just like we have ATT, Verizon, Etc.
      • dismantlethesun 9y ago
        Regional monopolies or there is some kind of differentiation between the plans. Additionally, they bribe customers into signing multi-year contracts. It is a totally different space from taxis, where the experience is mostly fungible.
    • pfarnsworth 9y ago
      Everyone keeps forgetting that Lyft has first-mover advantage. Lyft basically created ride-sharing, Uber was a black-car company and had to play catch-up to Lyft.
      • kunaalarya 9y ago
        lyft somewhat had first mover advantage in SF. Uber had first mover advantage in every other city. Uber already existed in SF and was doing black car rides and a lot of people in NY/SF knew of it - which Uber used to leapfrog Lyft's first move advantage.
    • otheotheothe 9y ago
  • pfarnsworth 9y ago
    > Plus, most of the Uber drivers are shady here and the people think Ubers a snaky company. I bet you'll think that you're not a racist or a bigot, and yet you're making the exact same connection a racist or bigot would. Just because someone drives for Uber, they are shady? That's a terrible stereotype to be propagating, just like our esteemed president saying "Most illegal immigrants are rapists."
• nullnilvoid 9y ago
  > prices have to rise 6% (assuming no efficiency improvements via pool etc, which is frankly ridiculous) If Uber raises 6%, the revenue Uber will decrease. If you raise the price, simply there will be less rides because people will find alternatives such as Lyft, taxi, or even public transportations.
  • bpodgursky 9y ago
    An irrelevant percent of people will choose to take the bus because their $10 ride is now $10.50. I agree that they are competing against Lyft on price, but they will both sooner or later have to reach break-even; neither will run at a loss forever. Rides will shift between them, but the rideshare market as a whole will shrink trivially when it does.
    • nullnilvoid 9y ago
      Many of my friends open both Lyft and Uber. They choose whichever is cheaper. Sure, Lyft might take a few more minutes to arrive. If you time it well ahead, it does not cost you more time. For me, I would rather take Lyft even if it is a little more expensive and takes a little longer. I hope Lyft catches up and makes it a real competition, which benefits consumers eventually.
      • threeseed 9y ago
        In Australia we only have Uber and taxis. Nobody is switching to taxis because of a 10% price increase. Because most people are using Uber for the fact that they will always come, always pick you up and always drop you off at the right spot. So it's fantastic that Lyft is doing okay in the US. But Uber is playing a whole different game.
        • inopinatus 9y ago
          This is incorrect. We have had private hire vehicles in Australia for years. Many of them are now also taking rides via Uber, but I've had black sedans to/from the airport for as long as I can remember. The only things Uber add to the service mix is an app and a bad attitude, neither of which create any value for me.
• objclxt 9y ago
  > And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride. Prices don't have to rise 20% to break even, prices have to rise 6% No, they have to rise by more than that. Your math is technically correct (a 6% rise gives you an extra $700 million), but you are assuming that the price increase goes entirely to Uber. There is no way Uber can increase prices by 6% and give none of that upside to their drivers - they would flee to platforms offering better terms (like Lyft). If Uber was to be profitable this past quarter they wouldn't have needed an extra $700 million in fares, but an extra 2.3 billion - which is a 20% rise.
  • encoderer 9y ago
    </conjecture> Lyft just isn't a real competitor outside of major American cities right now. Go to a city without an international airport and see how many lyft drivers there are.
    • untog 9y ago
      Oh, for sure. But being spread thinly over dozens of small markets isn't necessarily a better idea than concentrating on a few large ones.
      • rtx 9y ago
        Counter example India, Lyft can now never come here. Soon it will be one of Uber's biggest market.
        • zda 9y ago
          Why not?
          • rtx 9y ago
            We had a local competitior backed by soft bank. They are in bad shape. All because of execution. I don't see any other company able to match that ruthlessness.
• sandipagr 9y ago
  > And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride. From what I have read/heard, they count all of Uber pool in revenues so this statement isn't entirely correct.
• clairity 9y ago
  that's incorrect. $3.4B is their gross revenue (gross bookings) and out of that they probably paid 70% to drivers ($2.4B). i say probably because that assumes a single revenue source, no diffential payments to drivers and no other direct costs (COGS). so indeed, they would need revenues to go up by ~20% to break even. that in turn means a 20% rise in average prices to break even (again assuming a single revenue source).
  • pfarnsworth 9y ago
    No, you're wrong. 3.4B is their revenue, not their gross bookings.
    • toehead2000 9y ago
      No you're both wrong. 3.4B is their gross, not their revenue bookings.
    • arcticbull 9y ago
      And 100% of Pool fares.
    • clairity 9y ago
      you're right, my bad. in my haste to post before quickly having to get offline earlier, i didn't read carefully. i also couldn't access the WSJ article, so i don't know if there are better numbers in it or not. in any case, here's what i could garner about 1Q2017 by looking at other sites[1][2]: $7.5B bookings ((1+9%)*$6.9B from 4Q2016) -$3.2B paid to (non-Pool) drivers -$0.9B COGS (probably driver acquisition) ------------------------ $3.4B net revenue (GAAP) -$1.9B paid to Pool drivers ------------------------ $1.5B net revenue (non-GAAP) -$2.2B other expenses ------------------------ -$0.7B net earnings (or EBIT?) ($3.2B+$1.9B)/$7.5B = 68% paid to drivers (32% take rate [3]) the numbers are a little rough, but in any case, my main point still stands: they still need a 20% rise in bookings for it all to trickle down into a breakeven scenario. [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/uber-s-revenue-rises-losses-narrow-head-of-finance-gupta-exits https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/uber-s-re... [2]: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2017/05/31/Uber-posts-improved-financial-numbers-but-loses-another-executive/2751496279466/ http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2017/05/31/Uber-posts-impro... [3]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2017/04/15/caution-ahead-ubers-financials-reveal-staggering-growth-but-raise-many-questions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2017/04/15/caution...
• argonaut 9y ago
  Warning: Uber counts the entire Uber Pool fare are revenue, which throws off these numbers a lot since I would guess that Uber Pool is the most popular option where available. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled-uber-reports-strong-sales-growth-as-losses-continue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled...
• neom 9y ago
  It depends. They have a printing press. So, do you consider their taxi business the printing press on the way to create the ATM or the Bank?
• hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  Perhaps I'm being dense, but I don't understand your math. If $3.4 billion represents the 30% Uber cut, then that means total gross bookings is about $11.3 billion. If they raise prices six percent, and have no loss of volume, then total gross bookings comes to about $12 billion. However, wouldn't you still assume Uber only would get 30% of that extra $700 million in gross bookings? I.e. revenue would only be .3 x $12 billion, which is $3.6 billion, still leaving Uber 500 million short?
  • odonnellryan 9y ago
    No. What would prevent Uber from taking all 6% raising prices and giving drivers nothing extra?
    • sundvor 9y ago
      Lyft.
    • chrischen 9y ago
      I would also add that drivers shouldn't be getting extra as right now drivers aren't the ones subsidizing the lower prices.
    • hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
      I think that's a pretty bad assumption. If that's the case, what's to stop Uber from just taking a bigger chunk now and giving drivers less without raising prices? "Market forces" is the obvious answer, and those forces aren't going away.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• idiotdummy 9y ago
  >Yeah... Uber is doing fine. Okay, let's see them raise prices 6% in an environment with increasingly hostile regulators, increasing competition and a shallow moat and see what happens. "Just raise prices" demonstrates a lack of fundamental economic analysis; what happens to demand? Outside of of a few city centers, people use Uber because it's cheap, not because it's cool. People will move to alternatives. Uber is literally giving away rides, then boasting about usage. You think they can easily increase prices?
• aetherson 9y ago
  The few numbers that Uber posted look like good news for them, but let's not overstate things. The reason that people post numbers YoY instead of QoQ most of the time is not to artificially inflate numbers. It's because lots of companies have yearly seasonality. If you looked at Apple's numbers for Q4 (real Q4, Oct-Dec, not Apple's fiscal Q4) quarter over quarter, they'd always look like they were on a massive, incredible growth trend. If you looked at their Q1 numbers quarter over quarter, they'd always look like they're shrinking. Since Uber is sharing a very limited subset of numbers on a purely voluntary basis, it's pretty reasonable to assume that they're showing the ones that make them look good. If they wanted to show YoY numbers, they certainly could. It stands to reason that YoY numbers aren't going to make them look massively better than QoQ numbers. And, finally, saying that you could "just" raise revenue by 6% and have it all go to the bottom line with no other effects is fantasy -- and even if they could do that, that would make them non-GAAP break-even, not "the kind of profitable company that justifies a $70B valuation."
  • mattmanser 9y ago
    Looking at this interesting pdf: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_book.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_... It looks like Taxis are seasonal and so they'll see a drop in revenue over summer (page 4). Though elsewhere they note that airport fares are up over summer. It also looks like there's a large, several day, drop over the Xmas period every year, which could potentially make Q1 better than Q4. Although I know in the UK at least Xmas rates are higher. Still, without seeing the actual figures and just eyeballing it, it's hard to say. As you say though, they could have decreased costs just by dropping what they pay their drivers. Ahem, I mean the rate they offer jobs to self-employed definitely-not-employed independent contractors. (I wasn't able to read the source article, so don't know if they've addressed that).
    • aetherson 9y ago
      When I worked for Flywheel (which was an Uber competitor that uses taxis, and whose customers were concentrated heavily in San Francisco), there were a number of different, crazy seasonal effects. Rainy weather definitely spiked demand in a big way (I sometimes wonder if Flywheel would have managed to make it over a few more hurdles if California had not been in an intense multi-year drought when I worked there). There was virtually no demand from Christmas to New Years, and then New Years Eve saw demand that was 10x what it was on other days. There are other extremely high-demand holidays such as Halloween and St Patrick's Day. Basically any drinking holiday, for obvious reasons, except 4th of July. Uber is in many more markets, of course, though I suspect that a smaller number than you'd think are by far the heavyweights in their revenue and an even smaller number are the heavyweights in terms of improving their bottom line. They have surge pricing, which we didn't, and which is presumably better at turning demand into revenue than we were. Other markets may have different relationships with their weather than San Francisco did.