Markets had been expecting huge losses, but Uber posted a net profit of $892 million in the fourth quarter, a sign that profitability is no longer a pipe dream for the giant of car rentals with drivers (VTC).
The U.S. company had revenue of $5.8 billion during the holiday season, up 83 percent year-over-year, according to its earnings release released Wednesday.
Its stock was up more than 5% in electronic trading following the close of the Exchange.
“Uber is coming out of the pandemic strengthened,” Dara Khosrowshahi, the company’s boss, told analysts at the conference.
The app now has 118 million “monthly active users,” “more than ever before,” according to the executive. He also pointed out that for the activity of trips with drivers, gross bookings (essentially the amount collected before the payment of drivers) have almost returned to the pre-pandemic level.
As for the Omicron variant, it played less trouble-parties than expected. “Its impact on journeys seems to have been very limited in time,” Mr Khosrowshahi said.
Uber has suffered greatly from the fall in business and personal travel in 2020 and 2021, to the point of having to delay its profitability goals.
– “Fast muscle” –
The Californian group then invested in deliveries, and this activity quickly became more important than trips.
In all, from October to December, deliveries brought Uber $ 2.4 billion (+78% YOY), and rides, 2.3 billion (+55%).
Like many companies, however, Uber continues to run out of manpower.
“The demand for deliveries as well as for journeys is like a very fast muscle, while the supply adjusts more slowly,” says the boss.
He clarified that the platform’s algorithms were no longer separated between the two activities, and now indifferently offered drivers deliveries or trips “in a much more fluid and elegant way”.
For the year 2021, Uber has reached $ 17.5 billion in revenue and has largely reduced its losses to 496 million, instead of the 6.8 billion net losses in 2020.
In November, Dara Khosrowshahi, was pleased to have generated for the first time a gross operating surplus (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or Ebitda) of $ 8 million.
“This superb quarter should put an end to the many questions, not always unjustified, that have been asked of us regarding our business model. Does it work? The answer is yes,” he assured.
– The status of the drivers –
But Uber has not finished proving that the business model it has created, that of the “gig economy” (“gig economy”), is socially viable.
The self-employed status of drivers, essential to this model, is indeed being questioned in many countries.
In the UK, the British Supreme Court ruled a year ago that Uber drivers are not self-employed and should be granted minimum social rights: minimum wage and paid holidays.
“Our drivers now receive financial benefits that our competitors do not have to pay,” complained the boss of the group, while explaining that it was the “right decision”, even if it “cost them dearly”, to ensure their presence in this country in the long term.
In the United States, the Biden administration in May canceled a regulation adopted by the Trump administration making it more difficult for platform workers to claim employee status, in order to “maintain workers’ rights to a minimum wage and overtime-related protections”.
The battle is first played out where Uber was born, in California.
The state passed a law in 2019 considering them as employees. Uber counter-attacked in 2020 by having the independent status of drivers approved by referendum.
But that referendum was declared unconstitutional by a judge last August.
“In California, we are sure of ourselves, but I have nothing more to share for now,” commented Dara Khosrowshahi.
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