Uber revenue more than doubles as people ride more and keep ordering

Revenue was also helped by high travel prices, caused by a year-long driver shortage.

Uber said the growth is expected to continue this quarter. He said the value of travel booked in April exceeded 2019 levels and he expects the total value of bookings in the current quarter to be between $28.5 billion and $29.5 billion. Wall Street expects $28.39 billion worth of reserves for the quarter ending in June.

Uber forecast adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of between $240 million and $270 million for the current quarter, compared with the average Wall Street estimate of $246 million.

Rival Lyft Inc.

spooked investors with a weaker-than-expected adjusted earnings forecast on Tuesday, sending its shares down more than 25% in after-hours trading. Both companies posted their first quarterly profit on this adjusted measure last year and have said this indicates the strength of their underlying operations. This metric eliminates expenses such as asset depreciation that many consider to be outside of a company’s core operations.

Lyft said Tuesday that it would spend more to entice drivers to return to its platform and that those costs would weigh on its bottom line in the current quarter.

Uber said on Wednesday that its driver base was at its highest point after the pandemic and that it did not need to spend much to increase supply. Many rideshare drivers switched to food delivery during the pandemic, and because Uber has a big delivery business, it has been in a better position to entice drivers to switch to transporting customers again.

Uber had previously scheduled to announce its results after the market closed on Wednesday, but moved it before the market opened amid concerns that its shares could be caught up in a broader sell-off triggered by Lyft’s launch.

In premarket trading on Wednesday, shares of Uber fell 0.6%, while shares of Lyft fell 25%.

Shares of both companies have underperformed this year on concerns that rising gasoline prices, labor shortages and new variants of Covid-19 could hurt their growth. Shares of Uber and Lyft are down 30% this year through Tuesday’s close, compared with a 20% drop in the Nasdaq Composite Index.

Neither company has posted a net profit thanks to the strength of their operations, although Uber has posted exceptional net profits thanks to its investments in other companies.

Uber’s first-quarter net loss widened to $5.93 billion from $108 million a year earlier. The loss came from his holdings in Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Global. INC.,

Grab Holdings of Southeast Asia Inc.

and Aurora Innovation Inc.

The loss was larger than the $494 million that analysts had expected. Uber’s adjusted earnings of $168 million for the latest quarter were higher than Wall Street’s projection.

Riders return to Uber and Lyft faster than drivers. Labor shortages pushed travel prices to record levels last year. Travel prices began inching down from those highs last summer, but have started rising again this year, according to market research firm YipitData. Companies imposed small fuel surcharges on passengers to offset the pain of higher gasoline prices, which hit average prices, YipitData said.

Uber reported record food delivery bookings in the first quarter, showing the resilience of the business even as restaurants reopened. Uber Eats grew larger than Uber’s core ride business during the pandemic and the unit’s bookings have continued to outpace rides. While delivery bookings grew 12% from a year earlier to $13.9 billion during the quarter, the rate of growth has fallen sharply from nearly tripling a year ago.

The ride-sharing and food delivery company reached a regulatory milestone in Washington state. In March, the state passed a law preserving the company’s independent contractor labor model. Uber, Lyft and other companies that rely on so-called gig workers have clashed with regulators across the country over whether their drivers should be classified as employees or independent contractors.

The companies spent more than $200 million in a 2020 ballot measure to overturn a California law that required them to classify drivers as employees. After California’s victory, Uber and others said they would lobby lawmakers in other states to preserve their gig worker model.

write to Preetika Rana at [email protected]