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

  • mPowa boss Dan Wagner tells CARTES 2013 that global innovation is transforming the retail sector
    November 20, 2013
    Industry analyst Gartner predicts that the mobile payment sector is poised to become a half-trillion-dollar global market in the next 18 months and mPowa chief executive Dan Wagner is positioning his company to capitalise on what he describes as “exponential growth.”
  • Call for papers for 17th IRF world meeting and exhibition
    March 28, 2013
    The Technical and Scientific Committee of the 17th IRF world meeting and exhibition is inviting surface transportation experts and researchers from all over the world to submit paper abstracts for evaluation. Abstracts should reflect original research or innovation in technical, institutional, economic, business and policy issues that are relevant, recent and significant. This global event, to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 9-13, 2013, will provide a unique forum for sharing the latest industr
  • Next Generation mobile computers launched by 4P
    November 19, 2013
    4P Mobile Data Processing is launching the latest versions of its FDA600-POS all-in-one handheld computer devices at CARTES 2013. The new machines “feature fiscal cash registers, chip&pin payments and biometric signature capture,” says 4P. The units are “light, compact and durable,” and allow “operators to track goods, people and locations with barcodes and RFID, shoot and geotag pictures, (create) videos and auto-ID, and stay permanently connected to remote servers via high speed wireless data”. There is a
  • Will volatile fuel prices increase use of public transport? Or not?
    May 16, 2012
    A day after ITS International published details of a report from The Mobility Collaborative - $4 per gallon gas won't alter driving behaviour, claims national study - the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and Building America's Future (BAF) has released a study which draws the opposite conclusion and predicts that record numbers of Americans will turn to public transportation as a cost-cutting measure in the face of volatile gas prices.