On Thursday, November 4, 2021, Uber announced its third-quarter earnings. In after-hours trading, shares rose 1% after a dip.
A drop in the value of Uber’s investment holdings, especially Didi, led to a net loss of $2.4 billion for the quarter. Some of those losses were offset by stakes in Zomato, Aurora, and Joby, according to the company. In the same quarter one year ago, Uber reported a net loss of $1.09 billion.
According to Uber, it also met the end-of-year target for adjusted EBITDA profit. A company’s EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The car-hailing giant earned $8 million in adjusted EBITDA, up from a $500 million loss in Q2.
Although pandemic restrictions have eased in some places around the world, Uber Eats has continued to grow. Due to its delivery business, the company was able to withstand Covid’s headwinds during the pandemic when people began ordering from home more often.
The delivery business continues to outperform its core ride-hailing business with revenues of $2.24 billion, compared with $2.2 billion. However, the gap is narrowing.
$402 million was brought in by freight. The company announced in an update to shareholders that the number of delivery merchants increased to over 780,000.
Since the pandemic, the company has struggled with supply and demand imbalances, which resulted in higher prices and longer wait times.
A pandemic recovery is underway at Uber in the U.S. In the third quarter, Uber’s active U.S. drivers were up by more than 60% and continued through October with ten weeks of continuous driver growth.
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, said on the company’s earnings call that surge prices have fallen by nearly half, while average wait times have decreased by five minutes.
Uber reported an increase in trips to and from airports of 35% quarter-over-quarter and 203% year-over-year, another sign of the economy’s recovery.
This was 9% more trips than the previous quarter and 39% more than last year. The number of monthly active platform users reached 109 million, an increase of 8% from the prior quarter. The combined earnings of drivers and couriers in the fourth quarter was $8.6 billion.
According to the company, gross bookings will range between $25 billion and $26 billion in the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $25 million to $75 million.
