Skip to main content

Uber ‘running at a loss’

Leaked financial reports appear to indicate that car-share firm Uber is operating at a loss. According to internal financial documents obtained by the Gawker website (link http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-prove-uber-is-a-mo-1704234157), Uber has lost tens of millions of dollars since 2012, and the documents suggest that CEO Travis Kalanick’s boasts about the company’s exponential revenue growth may be overblown. Gawker published images of the leaked documents online; an unaudited re
August 7, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Leaked financial reports appear to indicate that car-share firm Uber is operating at a loss. According to internal financial documents obtained by the %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal Gawker website Visit gawker.com website false http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-prove-uber-is-a-mo-1704234157 false false%>, Uber has lost tens of millions of dollars since 2012, and the documents suggest that CEO Travis Kalanick’s boasts about the company’s exponential revenue growth may be overblown.

Gawker published images of the leaked documents online; an unaudited revenue and expense breakdown for 2013 and 2014 showed that, though Uber’s net revenue has grown substantially, the company lost more than US$56 million in 2013. By the first half of 2014 alone, that had grown to more than US$160 million.

On a positive note, the documents also show that the company increased its cash holdings from US$263m in 2013 to over US$1bn the following year.

Uber is growing rapidly, despite many legal and public relations problems, bans in many countries, as well as competition from companies such as Lyft. In December 2014 it was reported to be worth US$40 billion.

In a statement to Business Insider, the company said, “Shock, horror, Uber makes a loss. This is hardly news and old news at that. It’s the case of business 101: you raise money, you invest money, you grow (hopefully), you make a profit and that generates a return for investors.”

Related Content

  • Uber’s self-driving cars resume trials in Pittsburgh in manual mode
    July 27, 2018
    Uber’s self-driving cars are being manually driven on public roads in Pittsburgh after a fatal crash which prompted the company to pull out of its testing programme in North America. The company is trialling new safeguards which it says will improve vehicle fleet safety and performance. According to a report by Medium, Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber Advanced Technologies, says: “While we are eager to resume testing of our self-driving system, we see manual driving as an important first step in piloting thes
  • FASTR consortium releases Automotive Industry Guidelines for Secure Over-the-Air Updates
    November 9, 2017
    A non-profit research consortium dedicated to automotive cyber security, Future of Automotive Security Technology Research (FASTR), has announced the availability of the Automotive Industry Guidelines for Secure Over-the-Air Updates. These guidelines are intended to assist automotive manufacturers and others involved in evaluating platforms for secure updates, describing the threat models, providing recommended cryptographic algorithms and detailing a step-by-step checklist for evaluating state of the art
  • Uber suspends Barcelona service after new regulations introduced
    February 5, 2019
    Taxi-hailing giant Uber is suspending its service in the Spanish city of Barcelona. The move comes after new regulations were passed by local authorities, according to Reuters. The company started its UberX service in the city last year. But from now on, passengers using ride-hailing services will have to wait at least 15 minutes after booking a ride before they can be picked up – thus negating one of the key selling points of companies such as Uber. Speed and convenience – as well as cost – are w
  • Waymo scraps AV operations in Austin
    November 15, 2019
    Waymo is closing its operations in the US city of Austin following an increase in investment in the Detroit and Phoenix areas. A spokesperson told Austin Inno: “As a result, we’ve decided to relocate all Austin positions to Detroit and Phoenix. We are working closely with employees, offering them the opportunity to transfer, as well as with our staffing partners to ensure everyone receives transition pay and relocation assistance.” Last month Waymo sent an email to users, which appeared on Reddit, saying