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Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

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Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#41

Post by rennir »

randomdrake wrote: post #15

Great example of how the headlines can drive a story more than the story itself. While Uber may have posted $708 million of losses, it is also up 18% in revenue from last quarter. That's 3.4 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2017. Uber is making approximately $1,500,000 per hour. I dislike Uber as much as the next person for ethical reasons, but a company that can achieve millions of dollars in revenue per day,…

The reason they can make so much money is in part due to their lack of ethics and willingness to break rules/regulations. They haven't done anything extraordinary; they're just more willing to engage in shady behavior for that extra buck.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#42

Post by bactrian »

wand3r wrote: post #23
guelo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the silly dig at Snap? If you subtract Snap's employee stock program it lost $200m last quarter which is a lot less than Uber's $700m loss.

This is a tweet from Calacanis. I think he invested in Uber. I have no idea. Guess is that they are a recently public tech company that is an app w/ network Dynamics.

Uber is his one investment that people other than himself consider successful.

He wrote a book about what a genius he is for investing in a hundred companies and having one of them be Uber.

He's going to have to revise the book to talk about his coffee machine startup.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#43

Post by georgeecollins »

dmix wrote: post #33
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1,500,000 per hour in revenue sounds great. Spending $1,872,000 per hour to bring in $1,500,000 per hour sounds less great. I understand that it takes money to make money, but this is one of the most extreme cases in a business.

People were saying the same thing about Twitter forever and turned out to be largely wrong. I have a feeling the company making billions of dollars in revenue has some smart people who figured out how not to mess this up. But who knows maybe Uber will stop being the dominate taxi / self-driving car company globally over the next decade and mess it all up. Or not... but I doubt this large expenditure was done without…

Are you sure they were wrong about twitter? It still loses money. I am not saying that twitter isn't valuable, it just may have been overvalued. You certainly lost money if you bought stock in it five years ago.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#44

Post by nullnilvoid »

bpodgursky wrote: post #30
nullnilvoid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#45

Post by gruez »

dmix wrote: post #33
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1,500,000 per hour in revenue sounds great. Spending $1,872,000 per hour to bring in $1,500,000 per hour sounds less great. I understand that it takes money to make money, but this is one of the most extreme cases in a business.

People were saying the same thing about Twitter forever and turned out to be largely wrong. I have a feeling the company making billions of dollars in revenue has some smart people who figured out how not to mess this up. But who knows maybe Uber will stop being the dominate taxi / self-driving car company globally over the next decade and mess it all up. Or not... but I doubt this large expenditure was done without…

>I have a feeling the company making billions of dollars in revenue has some smart people who figured out how not to mess this up.

see: enron

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#46

Post by notyourwork »

abhv wrote: post #14

They haven't broken out the losses. (a) Are they profitable in the US? That would be a huge milestone. (b) If not entire US, are they profitable in top-X US urban markets, and thus losses are all due to expansion into 2nd/3rd quartile of cities? (c) Maybe some metrics like "After subtracting R&D efforts in self-driving cars, and legal fees due to multiple lawsuits, we are on average making X cents for every mile/minu…

These are really great questions I would love someone to shed light on.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#47

Post by adriand »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #26
randomdrake wrote: post #15

Great example of how the headlines can drive a story more than the story itself. While Uber may have posted $708 million of losses, it is also up 18% in revenue from last quarter. That's 3.4 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2017. Uber is making approximately $1,500,000 per hour. I dislike Uber as much as the next person for ethical reasons, but a company that can achieve millions of dollars in revenue per day,…

$1,500,000 per hour in revenue sounds great. Spending $1,872,000 per hour to bring in $1,500,000 per hour sounds less great. I understand that it takes money to make money, but this is one of the most extreme cases in a business.

The fact they're losing money like this doesn't really mean anything because Uber isn't a normal business. It's not some little mom & pop outfit that has bills to pay. This is a company whose investors (e.g. the Saudis) have so much cash a billion here and a billion there barely matters.

It's a place for absurdly wealthy people to park vast sums of cash on the bet that Uber will continue to gobble up marketshare from taxi companies, etc., until they're in a position to disrupt transit in general (and ride sharing services, too) with self-driving cars and who knows what else they'll come up with.

I don't think comparisons with Twitter are all that apt. People need to go from point A to B. No one needs to tweet. The network effect of social networks is valuable but I think that value pales in comparison to transportation. The way we pay backs up this premise: we pay for Twitter and Facebook with our eyeballs and our data, but we pay for Uber with our credit cards.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#48

Post by nullnilvoid »

sib wrote: post #38
nullnilvoid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> If Uber raises [prices] 6%, the revenue Uber [receives] will decrease. You are assuming facts not in evidence. If you don't know Uber's price elasticity of demand, you can't predict that. It is likely that the number of rides will decrease, but, if it decreases by less than ~6%, their total revenue will increase.

It is a very competitive market. Customers are price-sensitive. I have many friends who open both Uber and Lyft and take whichever is cheaper. Right now, their prices are very close. If Uber raises 6%, their revenue will drop in my area. Besides, if it is that easy to turn a profit, Uber would have done it a while ago. A profitable business is much easier to justify under the current circumstances.

Re: Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves

#50

Post by threeseed »

lettergram wrote: post #16
bpodgursky wrote: post #13

$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.) 708mm loss / 3.4 billion in revenue is only about 20% under even. 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% (assuming no efficiency improvements…

> 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 a…

> 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.

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