Ride-hailing technology firm Uber is expected to continue benefiting from the reopening of cities and a “boom” in travel for the rest of 2022.
Uber made the upbeat comments as it recorded a 32 per cent year-on-year rise in gross bookings to $29.1 billion in the third quarter.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company should continue to benefit from tailwinds, such as cities reopening and pent-up demand for travel, in the final months of 2022, with October “tracking to be our best month ever for mobility and total company gross bookings”.
The company did not mention Uber for Business (U4B), other than Khosrowshahi noting that Uber was continuing to “invest in U4B high-capacity vehicles”.
Uber’s Q3 revenue rose 72 per cent to $8.3 billion, while the company’s net loss for the quarter was $1.2 billion, down by around a half on 2021’s loss of $2.4 billion.
The number of trips during the quarter was 1.95 billion, up by 19 per cent from Q3 2021, and an increase of 4 per cent compared with the second quarter of 2022. There were 124 million monthly active platform customers in the quarter, up 14 per cent on the same period in 2021.
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) accounted for nearly 23 per cent of revenue at $1.88 billion, a 77 per cent increase from Q3 2021. Although this result was boosted by a $1.1 billion benefit related to a change of business model in the UK after drivers were reclassified as workers following a long legal battle.
During the third quarter, Uber announced the end of Uber Rewards from 1 November. It also added sustainability data to its Uber for Business dashboard.
In addition, the company announced a partnership with electric vehicle provider Moove to bring 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs) to London by 2025. It also launched Uber Taxi, which allows users to request a local taxi service, in new markets including Paris and Brussels.