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Uber Q3 Results

investor.uber.com

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Re: Uber Q3 Results

#61

Post by ngoel36 »

ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

> Uber has only made finding the ride more efficient but it has not made the actual ride itself more efficient.

Driver cost per trip = Driver cost per hour / Driver utilization.

By making finding the ride more efficient, Uber meaningfully increases driver utilization, decreasing driver cost per trip.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#62

Post by mikemotherwell »

henrikschroder wrote: post #59
ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

> Uber has only made finding the ride more efficient but it has not made the actual ride itself more efficient. Back when Uber was new and everyone in SF was exclaiming how awesome it was and disruptive, one of the major taxi companies in Stockholm launched a new version of their app that basically had a big button going "I want a taxi to my location now", and you pressed it, and you got a "Hey, your taxi will arrive…

There are way more positives than that:

# No money changes hands, so safer for drivers.

# No payment is made in the vehicle, so faster exit times.

# Uber records all trips, so easier to work out costs to expense.

# Uber uses any credit card, so your boss can pay for your ride without the need for separate expensing.

# Driver and passenger are tracked, so there it is easy to find who did what. There are a lot of rape charges and cases against Cabbies.

# Rating - I've been in a LOT of awful, awful cabs.

# Drivers can work 1 hour and make some money. Try that with any other job.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#63

Post by appleshore »

cavisne wrote: post #40
ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

At least for me uber has huge brand loyalty, it’s sitting in the dock of my iPhone. If I need to go somewhere, or get home, Uber has never let me down. Likewise with food delivery, I certainly have been let down on that but Uber does the best job of letting me track the order and get a refund if needed. Sure Lyft is an alternative, I have it on my phone but simply never use it. It’s incorrect that nothing has changed…

I check my Uber, my girlfriend checks hers and Lyfts. There’s various promos so it’s changes. And now there’s Opoli but maybe only at LAX.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#64

Post by MuffinFlavored »

ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

> I will always pick the cheapest option.

My friend's sister got hospitalized after her Uber driver ran a red light because they were not privy to traffic queues most normal people would have caught on to (like stopping when a light is turning red)

I will gladly spend a couple extra bucks the ~20 times I need to Uber a year so that I am not getting into a screaming metal death trap with an unfit driver.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#65

Post by pbreit »

ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

Much of your post is wrong.

Would need to evaluate the one-time charges to determine if they actually would be ongoing. Simply having some one-time charges doesn't mean they will necessarily be perpetual.

In fact, the vast majority of riders have a preferred option even without the frequent rider incentives. This is even starker on the driver side.

The advent of pooling and continuing improvement absolutely have had a significant impact on the economics.

Uber has delivered various efficiency improvements including map-based routing and pricing, pooling. Lyft has "Shared Savers" that trade time/walking for lower fares and more efficient pickups/drop-ffs.

In fact, Uber & Lyft are frequently more expensive than taxis because of surge pricing and superior product.

Uber & Lyft are in the best position to take advantage of robo-drivers.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#66

Post by countryqt30 »

Warren Buffett famously said: "When you read EBITDA, you should think BULLSHIT". The only reliable metrics are EBIT (if you precisely know the debt and tax situation of the company, which is usually laid open in the reports), and NET PROFIT.

Remember just 1 month ago, when WeWork tried to FRAUD everyone with their "we invented our own EBITDA"-metric, which they called 'EBIT adjusted for consciousness, because we sell consciousness, so we factor in the amount of consciousness we generate per square mile!!!!' ?

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#67

Post by adjkant »

georgeecollins wrote: post #10

You have to go past a lot of non-GAAP accounting to see that they actually lost $1.1B last quarter, almost all from operations. There is a nice chart showing all the things they are taking out to get their adjusted EBITDA of -0.5B. It seems like they are always taking out a bunch of one time charges to claim that there core business would be profitable. But every quarter they have those charges. I don't understand ho…

Stock based compensation is a big chunk of that which arguably doesn't really cost Uber anything really. I think the bigger takeaway is that its STILL 500 million dollars lost per quarter which is insane.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#68

Post by puranjay »

marcell wrote: post #45
ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

People in tech industry have excessive bias against businesses with no network effects or other obscenely effective barriers to entry. There are lots of successful, large corporations with varying levels of barriers to entry. Exxon Mobil doesn't have a network effect and has zero brand loyalty, but it's still a huge business. McDonald's also lacks network effects, though it does have some brand loyalty, perhaps simil…

I think the tech industry has been infected by a monopoly mindset, that the only way to build a business is to be the only business in that space.

It doesn't help that the most visible "successful" tech companies are all monopolies or duopolies (Google, Facebook, etc.)

But for every category-dominating Microsoft, there are dozens of very successful software companies in every vertical. Dozens of project management software companies, countless task management software companies, etc.

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#69

Post by [deleted] »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #64
ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

> I will always pick the cheapest option. My friend's sister got hospitalized after her Uber driver ran a red light because they were not privy to traffic queues most normal people would have caught on to (like stopping when a light is turning red) I will gladly spend a couple extra bucks the ~20 times I need to Uber a year so that I am not getting into a screaming metal death trap with an unfit driver.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Q3 Results

#70

Post by greggman2 »

cavisne wrote: post #40
ganitarashid wrote: post #17

Having new “one-time” charges every quarter means those are not one-time charges. They’re part of the business, which means the business doesn’t work. One of Ubers biggest problems is that they have zero brand loyalty. For a company that sells a utility (get me, or my food, from A to B) rather than an experience (like a cool vacation in a unique mansion), I will always pick the cheapest option. Whether that’s Uber or…

At least for me uber has huge brand loyalty, it’s sitting in the dock of my iPhone. If I need to go somewhere, or get home, Uber has never let me down. Likewise with food delivery, I certainly have been let down on that but Uber does the best job of letting me track the order and get a refund if needed. Sure Lyft is an alternative, I have it on my phone but simply never use it. It’s incorrect that nothing has changed…

I switched to Lyft a few years ago because of Uber's evil ways. I've had zero problems.

If people won't stop using a company that is so blatantly bad we're in trouble.

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