Image source:
What's going on?
Uber released some end-of-year earnings data late on Tuesday and despite reporting heavier losses than ever in 2017, its sales grew impressively and its losses began to shrink during the final quarter of the year.
What does this mean?
Since Uber isnt a publicly traded company, its not required to publish full financial results each quarter. Based on what we do know, Ubers sales grew by at least 10% during each quarter of 2017. Meanwhile, the value of its gross taxi bookings (from which Uber takes about a 25% commission) grew in the fourth quarter to a record $11 billion: nearly 60% up on the year before. But it wasnt all gravy…
Why should I care?
For markets: Ubers finances were well in the red in 2017. (tweet this)
While the size of its losses narrowed in the fourth quarter (the first full one under its new CEO) to a mere $1.1 billion, Uber still lost a virtually unprecedented $4.5 billion last year, thanks in part to several expensive legal battles and costly withdrawals from certain international markets. The company has given itself a target of 2019 for an initial public offering of its shares, and while its perhaps worrying that losses widened as revenues increased in 2017, the fact that the new CEO was able to work down the former in the last quarter might provide some comfort.
The bigger picture: Uber seems to be putting some of the worst behind it.
From sexual harassment to trade secret theft, its little secret that Ubers reputation took a severe beating in 2017. But the company may be turning over a new leaf this year: its just settled its dispute with Alphabets Waymo (admittedly to the tune of $245 million), and the entrance of major institutional investor SoftBank as Ubers largest shareholder has sparked a number of corporate reforms that will (hopefully) help steady the ship further.
Originally posted as part of the Finimize daily email.
The top 2 financial news stories in 3 minutes. Join over one million Finimizers
