"Uber released new financial data this week, showing full year 2017 GAAP operating losses of $4.5 billion, and an operating margin of negative 61%."
Finally, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles numbers from Uber. And they're awful. Lots of startups whine about having to produce GAAP numbers (all US public companies have to) because they can't exclude "extraordinary expenses". But GAAP numbers are real, not "earnings before all the bad stuff" numbers.
Right now, Softbank is keeping Uber alive. They put in $10 billion at the end of last year.[1] Softbank is now Uber's largest shareholder.
No one in the finance or investment industry I know sets much store by GAAP numbers which has lots of weird quirks [1] and isn't really helpful understanding the business.
From what I read off the reported numbers, they made about a billion on 11 billion on collections above the line. Excluding R&D and depreciation, they spent about 1.2 billion recurring or 1.5 billion all in. That doesn't sound like a bad place for the business that's close to tripling over a few quarters to be at all.
The only thing Uber can ever deliver is people and things to their final destinations. When Uber shuts down and goes out of business I as a consumer will just roll into the next service, and will not shed even a single tear for all who invested in Uber.
This year [2017], Lyft is on pace for $1.5 billion in net revenue -- the amount of money it generates after paying drivers -- on losses of $400 million, according to the document, which was prepared at the end of the second quarter. Since then, Lyft has spent heavily on a nationwide marketing campaign, including TV spots with actor Jeff Bridges. Investors are now anticipating losses of close to $600 million in 2017, two people said.
Well, the idea is that they kill off every competing service and then can raise prices. Also that they can beat everyone else to self-driving cars and eliminate the cost of labor. Other articles on NC have called the feasibility of both of those into question.
The main value prop for Uber hasn’t changed for quite some time, probably not much since UberX, the innovation there is pretty much done.
This puts Governments in the perfect position to disrupt Uber, if they build their own version, feature for feature (let’s face it, it’s a complex app but not that hard to copy) and mandate it on their already regulated taxis / ban uber, their user acquisition costs and marketing costs will be almost zero. They can run it without making a profit and keep fares lower or close to the current Uber position. Win win for everyone
LibreTaxi (and several other open source clones) already exist. Governments can easily take those, bake in credit cards (which open source / decentralized apps really can't support) and put in some legalize insurance coverage and they are good to go.
The thing is the value in Uber and Lyft come from their mindshare that gives you access to drivers and customers, their ratings systems to filter out good drivers and riders, and their insurance to help mitigate the risk involved in riding in some random strangers car.
I don't think it takes state actors running the show to disrupt ridesharing though. Just an endorsement of the concept, some kind of insurance drivers must legally buy to do it, and the only really hard part for anyone involved is a rating system. Which isn't something to underestimate, its not technically hard to do but logistically a nightmare to be able to rate riders and drivers without a central business authority. I'm not sure governments are going to be willing to manage a review board.
For everyone? The only reason Uber and Lyft have been successful have been because the regulated taxis suffer from artificially constrained supply and zero quality control in terms of passenger experience. And we have governments to thank for that.
Even on the technology side--sure, Uber isn't groundbreaking, but having used Uber and Lyft and also having used my state portal for buying health insurance through Obamacare, it doesn't seem like governments are capable of producing the same user experience.
Did you just earnestly advocate for a government mandated ride-sharing app ? And you main argument is that if it's government mandated, "user acquisition costs and marketing costs will be zero", so the users get lower fares ?
That's brilliantly lawfully evil. Why stop there ? That argument applies for all services. They would all benefit from having zero acquisition costs. Just nationalise everything. Could anything go wrong ?
In the claim in the article that they're inflating top line revenue growth, is the argument that they're selling a $100 ride but giving a $20 discount and calling it $100 in top line revenue?
According to the article they are not only doing what you describe, but if due to an error or customer service reason they refund the ride later that day, they still count it as $100 of revenue.
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
Finally, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles numbers from Uber. And they're awful. Lots of startups whine about having to produce GAAP numbers (all US public companies have to) because they can't exclude "extraordinary expenses". But GAAP numbers are real, not "earnings before all the bad stuff" numbers.
Right now, Softbank is keeping Uber alive. They put in $10 billion at the end of last year.[1] Softbank is now Uber's largest shareholder.
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding_rounds/...
[+] [-] sfifs|8 years ago|reply
From what I read off the reported numbers, they made about a billion on 11 billion on collections above the line. Excluding R&D and depreciation, they spent about 1.2 billion recurring or 1.5 billion all in. That doesn't sound like a bad place for the business that's close to tripling over a few quarters to be at all.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-17/if-everyo...
[+] [-] hkmurakami|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] matte_black|8 years ago|reply
Sorry, but thanks for all the cheap rides.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandallBrown|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misterbowfinger|8 years ago|reply
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-11/lyft-set-...
[+] [-] Havoc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albertgoeswoof|8 years ago|reply
This puts Governments in the perfect position to disrupt Uber, if they build their own version, feature for feature (let’s face it, it’s a complex app but not that hard to copy) and mandate it on their already regulated taxis / ban uber, their user acquisition costs and marketing costs will be almost zero. They can run it without making a profit and keep fares lower or close to the current Uber position. Win win for everyone
[+] [-] zanny|8 years ago|reply
The thing is the value in Uber and Lyft come from their mindshare that gives you access to drivers and customers, their ratings systems to filter out good drivers and riders, and their insurance to help mitigate the risk involved in riding in some random strangers car.
I don't think it takes state actors running the show to disrupt ridesharing though. Just an endorsement of the concept, some kind of insurance drivers must legally buy to do it, and the only really hard part for anyone involved is a rating system. Which isn't something to underestimate, its not technically hard to do but logistically a nightmare to be able to rate riders and drivers without a central business authority. I'm not sure governments are going to be willing to manage a review board.
[+] [-] philwelch|8 years ago|reply
Even on the technology side--sure, Uber isn't groundbreaking, but having used Uber and Lyft and also having used my state portal for buying health insurance through Obamacare, it doesn't seem like governments are capable of producing the same user experience.
[+] [-] ovi256|8 years ago|reply
That's brilliantly lawfully evil. Why stop there ? That argument applies for all services. They would all benefit from having zero acquisition costs. Just nationalise everything. Could anything go wrong ?
[+] [-] sgwealti|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apike|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|8 years ago|reply
For every 100,
Driver gets x Uber cut is y X+y = z
Z ÷??? = 100
Where does the 100 go?
[+] [-] jmp_0xdeadbeef|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]