(San Francisco) The platform for booking vehicles with driver (VTC) and meal deliveries Uber announced on Wednesday much better than expected results in the fourth quarter of 2022, notably generating a profit at the end of the year.
From October to December, the Californian company made a net profit of $595 million. Reported per share and adjusted for exceptional items, profit was 29 cents. Analysts had expected a loss of 18 cents.
Over the whole of 2022, however, Uber posted a net loss of $9.1 billion, after finishing sharply in the red in the other three quarters.
On Wall Street on Wednesday, the group’s stock rose about 1% at the start of the session, after climbing 7% in electronic trading before the opening.
“We ended 2022 with the best quarter in our history thanks to robust demand and record margins,” said Uber boss Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement.
“The global scale of our activities and the unique advantages of our platform position us ideally to accelerate this momentum in 2023”, judged the leader.
The group’s quarterly revenue was $8.6 billion, 49% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2021 and slightly above market expectations. Over the year, it reached 31.9 billion (+83%).
The total amount of bookings made from the app was $30.7 billion in the quarter, up 19% year-on-year.
In detail, the sum generated by the “Mobility” branch (reservation of cars with driver) jumped by 31% and that generated by the “Delivery” division (delivery of meals at home via the Uber Eats application) increased by 6%. Freight activities, which are less important, grew by 42%.
For the first quarter of 2023, Uber expects total booking volume in the range of $31 billion to $32 billion.
At the end of 2022, Uber had 131 million monthly active users, up 11% from the end of 2021.
Mr. Khosrowshahi also insisted that the still robust demand was helping to reduce concerns among drivers about the high cost of living.
“Our drivers told us that inflation is a factor they take into account,” assured the boss during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.
“Around 70% of them come to the platform to earn more money so they can afford to live in an inflationary environment,” he added.
Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, “Uber continues to see healthy growth as the supply of drivers appears stable, while the business continues to benefit from the resumption of travel, the return to the office and other trends. post-pandemic that persist in large cities”.