Uber’s business is over the pandemic slump

By Sara O’Brien, CNN Business

Uber’s business is showing signs that it’s moving past the pandemic slowdown.

The company reported Wednesday that its revenue grew 83% year-over-year to $5.8 billion in the final three months of 2021, as people increasingly turned to its ride-hail platform to get around and ordered food through its delivery service.

“Our results demonstrate just how far we’ve come since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement accompanying the results. On a conference call with analysts, Khosrowshahi said the results also show “how eager people are to move around their cities as restrictions ease up and how delivery has become an important part of their daily lives.”

Khosrowshahi acknowledged that the surge in Covid cases from the Omicron variant did begin affecting its business in late December but he said its ride-hailing business “is already starting to bounce back.”

Uber had 118 million monthly active users on its platform last quarter, its highest amount to date and a 27% increase from the year prior.

Shares of Uber jumped more than 5% in after hours following the earnings report.

Uber also posted an $892 million profit for the three-month period, marking its second profitable quarter as a public company, excluding certain expenses. That was buoyed in part by its investments in ridehail company Grab, which acquired Uber’s Southeast Asia business in 2018, and self-driving car company, Aurora, which acquired Uber’s self-driving operations in 2020.

For the full year, Uber reported a net loss of $496 million, down significantly from the roughly $6.8 billion it lost in the year prior.

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