2020 was a bad year to be in the ride-hailing business. For Uber, revenue in their mobility business was down 52%. Fortunately they have been busy building Uber Eats into a food delivery giant — which helped to soften the blow of the pandemic. Indeed, Uber's food delivery business has been taking in more in gross bookings than the mobility division for the last 3 quarters in a row.
You'd be forgiven for thinking then that Uber might have made a decent profit last year, as food delivery boomed. They actually lost $6.8 billion, which remarkably, is actually a 20% improvement on the $8.5 billion they lost the year before.
Holding the faith
Uber shares are still 40% higher now than they were this time last year (pre-pandemic). Investors are clearly still confident that at some point Uber will turn its scale into actual profits — but just how much scale is it going to take?
