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Uber Sales Reach $7.5B in 2017
- nawgszy 9y agoNot really a surprise. Lyft is their only real competition in the States, I don't have any idea about the global state of things but I imagine they are likewise entrenched with their first mover's advantage. The real question, I thought, is: are losses per sale decreasing? If not, and if we need to see a significant price increase per ride before things can get better, I sort of wonder if the only thing the taxi industry needed to do to prevent this all from happening was develop a ride-hailing app which tracked your car and gave you the price ahead of time.
- asah 9y ago...and actually showed up when you called them ...and refund your money when the driver is a schmuck, no questions asked ...and provided cleaner, more modern cars than typical taxis ...and dealt with gnarly details in GPS ...and provided smarter, better conversationalists than typical taxi drivers ...and worked in multiple cities with one app ...and support multiple payment ...and let businesses handle complex expensing ...and and and
- jeremyjh 9y agoAnd sold dollars for $.75.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI wonder if suddenly uber raised its prices around the world to a level it would break even, would enough people still use it?
- moduspol 9y agoIf it can't break even on a 25% cut of every ride, someone else will be able to. It's a glorified SaaS app, and they have similarly priced competition in many markets. This idea that the price is unsustainable is just wishful thinking by opponents.
- ggg9990 9y agoSure. Even if the volume dropped 50% Uber could just fire half their staff. There is no way that Uber couldn’t find some volume level to play at.
- tmh79 9y agoif uber fired their lawyers and compliance staff, I bet they'd be profitable lol
- collyw 9y agoThey probably wouldn't exist.
- rankam 9y agoTaxi apps like these are prevalent in Europe and have been around for 5-7 years. MyTaxi/Hailo is owned by Daimler and is Europe's largest taxi app. Gett Taxi is a large player - Volkswagen invested $300 million in them in 2016. However, the taxi industry is regulated and can't set artificially low prices like Uber does.
- xiphias 9y agoI use Uber in Brazil, and all I see is that the Taxis are waiting in line because they are expensive and nobody wants them (although they have their special places). I talked to an Uber driver about his salary and he told me that the job is much easier than what he had before, and he's earning 3 times as much money.
- dingo_bat 9y agoNice regulations! They set a minimum price instead of maximum. Pretty clear the regulation was supposed to protect the industry not the consumers. Such regulations are the reason uber exists.
- joking 9y agoNeither can set artificially higher surge prices
- daurnimator 9y agoMany places don't even have an alternative. Here in Melbourne, Australia the only alternative that seems to exist is "GoCatch": which just books a normal taxi for you. The drivers don't have a clue about it, and often end up asking for payment (when it's all handled in the app). When visiting Vietnam, I've found no alternative to Uber that works.
- teknover 9y ago*Disclaimer: I managed GoCatch operations from Nov 2013 to Mar 2014. GoCatch has ride-sharing options since February 2016 (that's two years). While I can't state accurately to today's figures, there was akin to 350,000+ unique passengers last time I poked around. In ASEAN/AP region, Grab is huge. It's founder is from the region (Malaysia) and arguably bigger than Uber in most countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and yes, Vietnam: https://www.grab.com/vn/en/ https://www.grab.com/vn/en/
- daurnimator 9y ago> GoCatch has ride-sharing options since February 2016 (that's two years). I just opened the app now; I can't see the option? (what am I looking for?) > In ASEAN/AP region, Grab is huge Ah. I forgot about Grab. I think I saw some media about them, but can't say I know anyone that has tried them.
- teknover 9y agoNo worries. There's five rows to interact with in the app. Pickup time, Pickup location, Destination, Car type and Request. Car type is what you're after. Selecting 'Economy' car type puts you in a ride share, Taxi and Maxi are taxi-related rides, Premium is hire cars or Uber. Ride types and the monikers given have been a natural evolution in the industry. Even for most folks, when they say 'Uber' they're likely referring to 'UberX' not a hire car premium experience. Grab's massive! Unless you're deep in the country, you might not have known but it's actually pretty big. Quote from CNBC from June 2017: "Grab facilitates as many as 2.5 million rides each day, making it the largest ride-hailing platform in Southeast Asia with over 930,000 drivers in 55 cities and seven countries. In the past six months alone, daily rides have more than doubled." Steve Yegge famously just joined them after leaving Google/Amazon, a great blog read if you're curious about their culture, mission.
- sebleon 9y ago> only thing the taxi industry needed to do to prevent this all from happening was develop a ride-hailing app There's no way the taxi industry could have pulled this off. There's an incredibly complex dispatch system that keeps wait times and prices low, and hundreds of millions invested in incentives to create a new consumer behavior. The long term future hinges on the self-driving, hard to imagine the taxi industry being on the forefront of this tech.
- AlexandrB 9y agoCorrection: There's no way the taxi industry could have pulled this off. They're bound by their country's labor laws.
- thriftwy 9y agoI don't know, I use a ride hailing app from a "traditional" taxi park and it's quite good. Much more options than with Uber. Doesn't seem to be that hard.
- lrem 9y agoData point: I don't know a single person using Uber in Dublin. You can hail a taxi with an app (mytaxi, used to be hailo), which actually tends to be cheaper than Uber.
- dingo_bat 9y agoData point: I know several people who have foregone buying their own cars just because they feel uber is enough. One of those people is me.
- AlphaSite 9y agoPrices have been dropping, so I assume so?
- acchow 9y agoPrices way up here in San Francisco. Often UberPool in the $3-4 range are now about $5-6.
- tmh79 9y agogotta use that pool express now, I've been getting express pools to work for 2.50 pretty consistently
- praneshp 9y agoIt's pretty good. (Lyft also has the express concept, which I've used a few times. Most of those times the driver was under the impression it was a Lyft Line, and were wondering why there weren't any more rides showing up).
- acchow 9y agoThis is a really frustrating part of the experience. Why is the driver offering to deviate from the optimized, streamlined route to go into a small one-way street just so the passenger can get dropped of 15 feet closer to their destination? And now we gotta make 3 right turns to get back to our route?
- mevile 9y agoAnecdotally I have found Lyft's tech to just be abysmal. Lyft line for example instructed the driver on a packed freeway we've spent what felt like a good 30 minutes slogging through just before the last exit over a bridge to go ahead and turn around and pick up another passenger just so we can go through all that traffic again. I've heard drivers mention similar problems to me too. I didn't want to use Uber, but I can't really put up with Lyft's problems. I don't know and don't claim to say that this explains Uber's success, but it explains why I use Uber despite its notoriety.
- amorphid 9y agoI use Lyft Line several times a month, and have found it to be nicer than Uber Pool. I guess YRMMV (your ridesharing mileage may vary).
- nemothekid 9y agoAnecdotal, I also use Lyft, a lot, to the point where I'm probably wasting a lot of money (Mint says I spent $400+ last month). My usage upticked over the last month as I started commuting to the south bay from the city (so I would line to Caltrain). Line just seems abysmal during peak hours, where I actually reinstalled Uber just to commute. Multiple times last month, when leaving Caltrain to go home, the Lyft would leave the awful gridlock that happens around 4th street, then a passenger would be added, and the driver would have to turn around to pick up that person at Caltrain and we would all have to sit through traffic again. One of those rides took 30 minutes for what is normally an 11 minute line ride. In the morning, Line tends to choose the strangest drivers (some that are 15 minutes away) which always leads to me guessing which train I'll be able to catch. When I first switch to Uber (for my commutes), the most surprising thing is they recognized my street is one-way and had the driver pick me up on the adjacent street. Lyft drivers are almost always routed all the way around the block. I will continue using Lyft when I can (their support team has been really good, and I tend to prefer Lyft drivers), but I was a bit surprised by the small differences in routing. It really challenges my thoughts on Uber/Lyft/XYZ being truly interchangeable.
- misun78 9y ago
- ameyamk 9y ago$4 billion food delivery business! Thats pretty neat. Uber is showing signs that they can succeed in general logistic space also besides just taxi business.
- abvdasker 9y agoYeah it'll be interesting to see what happens with their new Freight business. That has the potential to be a real disruptor as I don't think any other tech companies have tried to tackle that space.
- deevolution 9y agoAll that turmoil has likely increased their mindshare. Basically they just benefited from free marketing... althought not without some consequences.
- deevolution 9y agoEvidently one of those consequences was not lower revenue. Edit: replaced profit with revenue. Uber is not currently profitable.lol.
- finkin1 9y agoAnd a 4.5B loss, which seems insane to me. It's interesting that UberEats reached 4B gross revenue run-rate, which according to the article means food delivery is 10% of their business. Seems like that's pretty significant given how recent UberEats is and how many competitors they have in the space. Why is UberEats better than Grubhub, for example?
- HowardStark 9y agoUberEats has simplicity and convenience over most of the other solutions. After using it every now and then for the better part of a year, I've had limited issues with delivery. By comparison, Postmates has had issues with delivery every time I've tried it. Usually, it comes down to a lack of drivers in my area, which isn't ever the case with Uber.
- williamscales 9y agoUberEats works very well. It's a simple UI and has many restaurants. The food comes quickly and you can see the location of the drive. When I've had issues, the customer support has been good. I haven't used GrubHub myself, but my experience with DoorDash has been considerably rockier than with UberEats. They get the order wrong often or fail to show up and you can't always order from the restaurant for immediate delivery.
- mrep 9y ago> UberEats works very well. It's a simple UI and has many restaurants. The food comes quickly and you can see the location of the drive. When I've had issues, the customer support has been good. 100% yes to all of these and I've ordered uber eats just shy of 100 times now. The customer support has been especially surprising as a few of orders have mixed with other people's a few times (so i got a completely different order) and I got too keep the food and got my money back. Granted, when they first started where I live, ALL delivery fees were waived so I could order a 5 dollar meal with no delivery fee, then they changed it to $30+ orders were free delivery, and now all orders have fees based on distance + surcharge so I don't order as much as I used too. I still use uber eats every once in a while as it is generally cheaper than other delivery services since tips are not expected and the cheapest delivery fees are currently 2.50$
- T2_t2 9y agoDouble revenue, 1.5X costs. Uber is well on track.
- parasubvert 9y agoI find a lot of naysayers miss the point of Uber: the experience really is better. UberX’s discount isn’t why I use it. It’s because the app is without peer. I can choose the car with the features I want. I have a company watching me and my driver to ensure that the experience is good for both of us, unlike taxis which have abysmal customer service and consumer (or driver!) protection in most cities. I’d happily pay more for it (and usually go for select or black when I can). I tip where I can. I don’t like Uber’s bro culture and wish Lyft would get better and broader coverage. But Uber is on to something big. UberEATS I can take or leave as others have comparable experiences (Skip the Dishes, DoorDash, etc).
- untog 9y ago> It’s because the app is without peer. Eh. Lyft provides essentially the same feature set. Here in NYC we also have Juno and Gett. The point is not that Uber is bad, but that it's utterly replaceable. The one plus they do have is their presence in so many cities around the world, and while that is a benefit, I'm not convinced it's enough - I don't think that many people travel that often that it can keep the company competitive.
- wuliwong 9y agoI think there are a lot of places around the world that have Uber but don't have Lyft. Uber has competition in some areas but it seems like there's a lot of places where it doesn't have much.
- untog 9y agoSure, but wide coverage doesn't come for free. Uber has to set up regional offices, advertise to local drivers, etc. etc. in each city in which it operates. It's not difficult to make the business case that you should actually just focus on a small number of huge cities instead - your chance for profit is much higher.
- wuliwong 9y ago
- Myrmornis 9y agoI prefer Uber because it doesn't hassle me for tips. Tips make compensation opaque, and a large part of the beauty of uber/lyft/etc for me anyway is not to have to think about the payment (after checking that the fare is reasonable). A small part of me probably prefers Uber also because the anti-Uber rhetoric in the press and "progressive" social media contacts is largely substance-less.
- vondur 9y agoI could run a money losing company so long as investors keep dumping money on my doorstep.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 9y agoUber Pool for 2 people across town frequently costs a bit less than the bus here, which means that they're still buying passengers, which means that "sales" is not a super honest metric. The question becomes how much will sales be hurt when they stop subsidizing. The cost doesn't have to go up by much to lose many current pool customers.
- msoad 9y agoDont underestimate how inefficient public transportation is
- forkLding 9y agoI have a strong feeling that Uber will survive time, simply because of the differences in their cost-of-acquisition and user lifetime value; Uber attracted me through their ~$40 cost of acquisition by paying both me and the referrer in credits which is small when you compare and see myself spending more than that amount in a year and definitely more as I move through life. I can also see them subtly increasing prices until they finally dominate transportation and ride-sharing. Expending huge amounts of money to grow is actually normal, Microsoft had billion dollar losses trying to market their Microsoft Surface in an Apple-saturated market and are currently now profiting from their heavy losses in the past; you can't really see the past until you're in the future.
- dmaschek 9y agoIt's pretty easy to have huge sales if what you're doing is essentially selling one dollar for 50 cents.
- freyir 9y agoYeah, but they only lost $1.1B last quarter. Things are looking brighter.
- Animats 9y ago"Sales were $7.5 billion. But the company also posted a substantial loss of $4.5 billion. There are few historical precedents for the scale of its loss." Somehow the part about the record loss disappeared from the title.
- petraeus 9y agoThe moment uber stops subsidizing their rides a million competitors will come out of the woodwork with a comparable app. its not the app thats unbeatable its their vc money, you cannot have 10 multi-billion dollar unicorn taxi providing companies existing at once.
- scarface74 9y agoSo how is that considered a success when they are still subsidizing rides and losing money. No one knows if Uber has a successful business model until they can start operating at a profit.