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· Posted on
February 21, 2024

Uber unveils its first quarterly operating profit ever.. and my 3km ride for $42 is certainly helping

After many big, expensive bets, Uber has announced its first quarterly operating profit globally.

What's the key learning?

  • Since its launch, Uber has broadened its offering, but not all of them worked out.
  • Now, Uber is planning to expand their travel offering and launch a flight booking feature as a part of its plan to be known as a profitable company in the future.
  • The growth-at-all-costs era is giving way to the reign of sustainable profitability.

👉 Background: Everyone knows Uber — in fact, more than 4.4 million Aussies used the app in 2022. And, since its launch, Uber has broadened its offering:

  • It expanded into food delivery with Uber Eats.
  • It expanded into logistics with Uber Freights.
  • It even went into driverless cars for a while.

👉 What happened: After many big, expensive bets, Uber has announced its first quarterly operating profit globally. We're talking a $394 million USD profit for the quarter. Compare that to the quarterly loss of $2.6 billion USD just 12 months ago.  

👉 What else: Now, Uber is feeling quite emboldened; the CEO says they're planning on expanding their travel offering and launching a flight booking feature... It's all part of their plan to be actually known as a profitable company in the future.

What's the key learning?

💡The growth-at-all-costs era is giving way to the reign of sustainable profitability.

💡 Many tech companies used investor funds to grow for many years. But with interest rates higher and the 'cost of capital' higher, investors are less willing to re-invest big chunks of cash with no prospects of profitability.

💡This result from Uber shows how serious they are to not only be profitable, but also continue growing into new verticals.  And the best bit? Given Uber's CEO used to be the CEO of Expedia, the travel sector shakin' in their deck chairs.

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