Uber Announces First Annual Profit As a Limited Company

(CTN News) – As a limited company, Uber has reported its first ever annual operating profit, in a milestone moment for a company that has spent trillions of dollars on an aggressive and often controversial global expansion.

Taxi app firm Uber said it earned $1.1bn in 2023, compared with $1.8bn in 2018.

Due to the milestone, investors are speculating whether Uber will buy back shares or even pay dividends to investors. Uber’s chief financial officer, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, said the company would share its “capital allocation plans” next week.

After initially declining, Uber’s shares rose by 1% on Wednesday. A fifth of its stock has risen in 2024, and it has doubled in the last 12 months, valuing the company at nearly $150 billion. During the last three months of 2023, customers booked 2.6 billion trips, or about 28 million a day.

As chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi noted, “2023 marked a turning point for the company, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth. Last year, our platform powered an average of nearly 26m daily trips, with our audiences growing and engaging more than ever.”

Camp and Kalanick founded in 2009. In 2010, Kalanick became CEO and expanded the app throughout the US, Europe, and many other countries.

Due to Uber’s embrace of the gig economy,

Its drivers in many countries were not entitled to sick pay or paid holidays, making their growth possible.

Kalanick’s tenure as CEO was marked by scandals and regulatory battles. A leak published by the Guardian in 2022 documented Uber’s breaking of laws, duping of police and secret lobbying of governments.

Former Expedia CEO Khosrowshahi replaced Kalanick in 2017, aiming to soften the company’s image and focus more on compliance with regulators. Khosrowshahi has led “one of the best turnarounds ever in the tech world,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush.

Since Uber floated on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2019, the company has consistently suffered deep losses. By 2022, losses had dropped to $1.8bn from $3.9bn in 2018 before increasing to $8.6bn in 2019.

The company made a profit in 2023 due to growing demand. In the final quarter of 2023, gross bookings – the total amount paid by passengers and delivery customers – increased by 22% to $37.6bn. Uber’s cut from those transactions was $9.9 billion.

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