Uber is already a fully-fledged company. After years of accumulating millions of dollars in losses as the price of greater growth (and as a toll of the pandemic), the company ended 2023 with a profit of 1,887 million dollars (around 1,750 million euros at the current exchange rate) for the first time since going public in the Year 2019. The company achieved three-quarters of operating profit and has exceeded the break-even point in what appears to be a definitive manner as it continues to grow at full speed.
Founded by Travis Kalanick, the company reported revenue of $37,281 million in 2023, up 17% year-on-year. That's the balance of the company's gross reserves of $137,865 million, up 19% from a year earlier. The annual operating result was positive for the first time and amounted to 1.11 billion dollars. Net profit amounted to the above-mentioned 1,887 million, which contrasts with losses of 9,141 million in 2022, according to the financial statements published by the company on Wednesday.
“2023 was a turning point for Uber and demonstrated our ability to continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale,” said CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “The fourth quarter was an outstanding quarter at the end of an outstanding year. Consumer activity remained healthy globally, supported by the continued shift in spending from retail to services. “Our customer base is now larger and more engaged than ever before,” the executive told analysts.
Uber has doubled its market value in the last 12 months and has a market capitalization of $145 billion.
The San Francisco (California)-based group already made a profit of $997 million in 2018, before the IPO, but this was due to extraordinary capital gains, primarily from the sale of the Southeast Asia business, due to deferred capital gains. in its Chinese subsidiary Didi. The operating result continued to be in deficit. With the pandemic, the red numbers skyrocketed. Uber had losses of $8.506 million in 2019; From 6,768 million in 2020, they were reduced to just 496 million in 2021, before posting a record loss of 9,141 million in 2022. Now it has completely transformed the profit and loss statement.
In the fourth quarter of the year, gross reserves increased by 22% year-on-year to $37,575 million, of which approximately $19,300 million (+29%) was attributable to mobility and approximately $17,000 million (+19%) to distribution. Trips increased 24% year-over-year to 2.6 billion in the quarter, averaging about 28 million daily trips. It is the freight business, the freight business, that continues to fail, with revenues of $1.3 billion, down 17% year-on-year, as a “result of the difficult freight transportation market cycle.” according to the company.
In the final three months of the year, revenue increased 15% year-on-year to $9,936 million. Combined mobility and delivery revenue increased 22% year over year to $8.7 billion. Quarterly operating results were $652 million, compared to losses of $142 million a year ago, and net income was $1,429 million, although this includes a result of $1,000 million in deferred capital gains related to the revaluation of capital investments Uber.
For the first quarter of 2024, the company forecasts gross reserves of $37 billion to $38.5 billion and adjusted gross operating income of $1.26 billion to $1.34 billion, forecasts that have left investors somewhat cold.
“Our strategy is working and we are proving that we are the platform that defines the category,” Khosrowshahi told analysts. “I am excited about the speed of innovation and dynamism I see throughout the company. We will continue to take advantage of the great and valuable opportunities that come our way. “We remain well positioned to generate leading shareholder value sustainably and in the long term.”
Uber's improved profitability and increased cash flow have allowed the company to deliver on its previous promise to return capital to shareholders. The company will provide more details on these plans at an investor event next week. “Uber’s platform advantages and disciplined investments in new growth opportunities led to record engagement and acceleration in gross bookings in the fourth quarter,” said Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, chief financial officer. “We look forward to sharing more about our strategy and capital allocation plans in our investor update next week.”
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