Ride-hailing mobility company Uber reported its first-quarter earnings, which saw the company beat analysts’ expectations on revenue.
Uber reported a first-quarter (Q1) revenue of $8.82 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $8.72 billion. The company saw $0.08 Earnings per share, the same as $0.08 expected by analysts. Gross bookings were $31.4 billion versus $31.4 billion expected.
For Mobility, it recorded $14.9 billion versus $14.8 billion expected by analysts, while Delivery was at $15 billion versus $14.9 billion expected.
Speaking on Uber’s first quarter earnings the company’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that Uber is off to a great start for the year, and it is focused on extending its product, scale, and platform advantages to sustain market-leading top and bottom-line growth beyond 2023.
In his words,
“We significantly accelerated Q1 trip growth to 24% from 19% last quarter, with Mobility trip growth of 32%, as a result of improved earner and consumer engagement. Looking ahead, we are focused on extending our product, scale, and platform advantages to sustain market-leading top and bottom-line growth beyond 2023”.
He further added that Uber is already using AI to predict highly accurate arrival times for rides and deliveries and to expedite driver onboarding by processing documents more reliably and cost-efficiently. It is understood that the company is still in the early stages of using large data models (LLM) to power improved user experiences and efficiencies across its platform.
Investors King understands that Uber relied heavily on growth in its Eats delivery business during the Covid-19 pandemic, but its mobility segment surpassed Eats revenue in every quarter of 2022 as riders began to take more trips during the ease of the lockdown. This trend continued into the first quarter of 2023, as the company’s mobility segment reported $4.33 billion in revenue while delivery reported $3.09 billion.
There is no disputing the fact that Uber has been dominating the ride-sharing market for years, thanks to its timely expansion into food delivery, which helped the firm stay afloat during the covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the ride-hailing giant could face increased competition from smaller firms such as Lyft, which has continued to keep pace with Uber in recent years, for a bigger portion of the car-share market.
It is however interesting to note that Uber and Lyft have fought for market share in the ride-hailing market for over a decade now, and have both managed to stay running, while other ride-hailing companies have come and gone.
