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The road to profitability is much harder than it seems

November 3, 2022
< 1 minute

By Sorin Anagnoste

Strategy | Business Models | Tech

Uber announced yesterday the results for Q3 2022. Here are my comments:

  1. The mobility service is now a premium, considering the actual prices
  2. Revenue from food delivery increased, but lower than food inflation
    net cash flow from operating activities less CAPEX = $358m – how can this be lower than shares issued to employees? (ie. $482 millions)
  3. “Our global scale and unique platform advantages are working together to drive more profitable growth, with Gross Bookings growth of 32% and record Adjusted EBITDA of $516 million,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO —- profitable growth? The company lost $1.2 billion (with a “B”), the number of employees reached the pre-pandemic levels and probably close to 50% cities are not profitable

When it comes to food delivery it is worth mentioning that most of the consumers are price sensitive

 


uber car

Sources: Uber, WSJ, ? Viktor Avdeev (Unsplash)

 

Looking at their consolidated statements I see the following numbers:
1/ $2bn on R&D. What exactly is here? Flying cars?!
2/ the number of shares has increased. This is a financial trick. More shares results in a lower negative EPS (where EPS is the holy grail indicator on Wall Street)

The road to profitability is much harder than it seems. I remain short on Uber.

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