Uber reported strong fourth quarter results as it capped a year focused on profitable growth and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company in 2024 will "use our data advantage to drive more efficient pricing, matching, and incentive spend."
While Uber is best known for its mobility and delivery services, the company is really a data platform that is extensible into new businesses. For instance, Uber has 19 million Uber One subscribers globally and has an ad business that's on a $900 million annual revenue run rate.
Uber also has been leveraging artificial intelligence as well as machine learning alongside process mining and automation. Uber has been cited as a reference customer for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Databricks, Celonis and UIPath.
The company will outline more about its data strategy during an Investor Update call Feb. 14.
- Uber aims to press its 'data advantage' for AI, model training
- Domino's Pizza eyes generative AI, Microsoft and Uber tech to drive growth
Uber reported fourth quarter earnings of $1.4 billion, or 66 cents a share, including a $1 billion gain due to revaluing of equity investments. Revenue for the quarter was $9.94 billion, ahead of $9.76 billion expected by analysts.
In the quarter, Uber saw gross booking surge 22% with mobility up 29% and delivery up 17%. For the first quarter, Uber projected gross bookings of $37 billion to $38.5 billion with adjusted EBITDA of $1.26 billion to $1.34 billion.
Khosrowshahi said:
“2023 was a year of sustainable, profitable growth for Uber as we executed against our strategy. We grew our business by improving marketplace health and scaling new products, bolstering our competitive position in key markets.
Turning to 2024, I want to highlight several key priorities. First, our goal is to make the Uber use case even more of an everyday reality. We’ll continue to enhance the power of our platform by expanding the number of consumers who use multiple Uber products, turbocharged by our Uber One membership program. Second, we will strategically reinvest into promising new growth vectors to deliver strong multi-year growth with healthy long-term unit economics. Lastly, we will maintain our industry-leading cost structure and use our data advantage to drive more efficient pricing, matching, and incentive spend."
By the numbers:
- Uber had 150 monthly active platform consumers in the fourth quarter, up 15% from a year ago.
- Trips in the quarter were up 24%.
- Mobility revenue in the fourth quarter was $5.54 billion, up 34% from a year ago.
- Delivery revenue was up 6% in the fourth quarter to $3.12 billion.
- Freight revenue was $1.28 billion, down 17% from a year ago.
- For 2023, Uber reported net income of $1.89 billion on revenue of $37.3 billion.
