Morning Report: Graphing Uber’s Key Financial Vitals From Q3’16 To Q2’17

Morning Report: Here are Uber’s operating numbers in graphical format.

Yesterday, we took a stab at collecting all the Uber financial numbers we could into a single post. The company’s now-quarterly drip of information was becoming a bit unwieldy. To add some measure of uniformity, we lined up the numbers as best we could.

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But we didn’t graph the numbers. (We were running low on time!) Happily, it’s a rectifiable sin, which we’ll sort this morning.

This morning we will only graph Uber’s gross bookings (total value of fares paid through its network in a given period) and adjusted losses (excluding various costs including stock, some capital expenses, and more).

Graphing the firm’s revenue fairly is more difficult. That’s because, due to an accounting quirk, the firm’s non-GAAP revenue (its adjusted net revenue) is actually a better picture of the company’s top line, and we only have a few quarters of it to report. (Refresher: $1.5 billion in the first quarter and $1.75 billion in the second quarter.)

So, two charts then. First up, here’s the gross spend on Uber’s platform:

And here is the ridesharing company’s (very) non-GAAP losses since the third quarter of 2016:

What you may see in the company’s rising gross bookings, and falling adjusted loss, is a potential path to profits. If Uber’s gross bookings keep rising, leading to more revenue over time, and its losses keep falling, the lines may eventually cross. But Uber faces heated competition both domestically and abroad.

With that said, can Uber maintain its growth while rivals duke it out for marketshare, and, at the same time, still stay on the path to profit? It’s a question that will be answered before Uber finds out if it is going to win the self-driving car game.

From the Crunchbase Daily:

Uber revenues up, losses down

• The number of Uber trips rose markedly in the second quarter, while EBITDA losses narrowed, according to a new financial disclosure from the company. Uber also disclosed drivers have received about $50 million in tips since it launched tipping in June.

Baidu sells food delivery business

• Chinese search giant Baidu has sold its food delivery subsidiary to Ele.me, a startup backed by Alibaba, for a reported price of around $800 million, a steep discount from the business’s prior valuation of about $2.5 billion.

Fashion is out of style with VCs

• While Silicon Valley may never be a fashion hub, venture capitalists have poured large sums into apparel and grooming startups, particularly in the first half of the decade. But funding for the space has declined in the past couple years, Crunchbase News reports, in the wake of several big failed investments. In other news, we look at whether data supports the notion that this is a golden age for startups.