Uber is far from making a profit from its ride sharing business. Finances leaked from the company show that it has exceeded $800 million in losses for the third quarter of its financial year, bringing its total losses to more than $2.2 billion (about RM9 billion).
It should be noted that these losses do not include Uber’s China operations, which shut down earlier this month. The California-based ride-sharing company ceased its efforts to compete with Chinese company Didi-Chuxing, and the two came to a mutual agreement. As part of its willingness to retreat from the world’s most populated country, Uber received a $1 billion investment and a 17.5-percent stake in the newly minted ride-sharing effort.
That said, not everything is looking bad for Uber. The company increase net revenue to $1.7 billion (about RM7.61 billion) in the third quarter; up from $1.1 billion (about RM4.5 billion) in the preceeding three months. In other words, income is growing.
Uber is not a publicly listed company, and much of these numbers had come from internal leaks and unnamed sources. Which means that there is a problem with figuring out just where all the money is going.
However, Uber is one of the fastest expanding companies in the world and it is conceivable that this comes at a price. The ride-sharing service has been aggressively marketing itself in the Asia Pacific region; potentially bringing it into greater competition with rivals like Grab.
On the bright side, Uber’s last valuation put it at $69 billion (about RM310 billion); and it even turned a slight profit earlier this year. Which makes us wonder just how much money it has sunk into the global expansion plans.
[Source: Bloomberg]
