Just over a year after Travis Kalanick was ousted as chief executive of Uber, the ride-hailing company released new financial results that showed continued growth and narrowing losses as it advances toward an initial public offering.
On Wednesday, Uber posted a loss of $891 million for the second quarter, compared with a loss of more than $1 billion during the same period a year earlier. The company took in $12.01 billion in gross bookings in the quarter — or the amount of passenger fares and food delivery fees — up 41 percent from a year ago. After paying out fees to drivers, revenue was $2.7 billion. When Uber turned a profit last quarter because it offloaded businesses in Russia and Southeast Asia, it cautioned that bump would not last as it planned to reinvest the money.
Uber is not required to disclose earnings because it is privately held, but it has made a habit of publicly releasing its numbers. Investors are closely scrutinizing Uber’s financials because the company is one of the world’s most highly valued private firms, at $62 billion, and is preparing to go public by the end of 2019. Its IPO is expected to be one of the biggest ever for a tech company.
Uber’s latest quarterly results indicate little change to its financial trajectory under Dara Khosrowshahi, who became the company’s new chief executive last August. Khosrowshahi was brought in to clean up the toxic workplace culture at Uber under his predecessor, Mr. Kalanick, and to get the company ready for an IPO. The company’s no-holds-barred approach to barreling into markets and flouting regulations, Khosrowshahi has said, had served it in the past but would not get the company to “the next level.”
In recent months, Khosrowshahi has shed some of Uber’s money-losing businesses in regions including Russia, flown around the world to placate regulators, settled lawsuits and launched a new marketing campaign to mark a fresh start for the company.
But he has also had to weather new crises, including the death of a woman who was hit by an Uber self-driving car in Arizona in March, several executive departures and internal questions about the behavior of his hand-picked No. 2, Barney Harford. Last week, New York City passed legislation to halt new vehicle licenses for ride-hail services, potentially capping Uber’s growth in one of its biggest markets.
In a statement, Khosrowshahi called Uber’s growth “impressive” for a business of its scale. He added that the company was investing in areas that he considered “the future of our platform,” including its food delivery service, Uber Eats, as well as in regions including the Middle East and India.
Khosrowshahi did not mention self-driving cars, which were a big bet under Kalanick but which have come under increasing scrutiny since the pedestrian death. Uber scaled back its testing of autonomous vehicles after the crash, and recently ended its development of self-driving trucks.
The company has been losing $125 million to $200 million every quarter on autonomous vehicles, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who was not authorized to speak publicly. The figures were earlier reported by The Information.
Uber said its spending otherwise continues to be robust. In its latest results, the company said operating expenses totaled $2.2 billion in the second quarter, up from $1.8 billion earlier this year.
