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from the How-to-lose-$5-million-every-single-day-for-a-whole-year dept.
Uber Lost $1.8 Billion in 2018 Despite Record Ride-Hailing, Food-Delivery Gains
Uber posted $50 billion in bookings for its ride-hailing and food-delivery services in 2018. However, the company still failed to turn a profit and its revenue growth slowed toward the end of last year, reports Reuters. That's bad news for Uber as the company looks to charm investors into an initial public offering (IPO) later this year.
Annual bookings were up 45 percent over 2017, according to Uber. Even then, the company's losses before taxes, depreciation, and other expenses still totaled $1.8 billion, down from the $2.2 billion loss the company posted in 2017. Uber's full-year revenue for 2018 was $11.3 billion, an increase of 43 percent from 2017.
Previously: Uber Posts $1 Billion Loss in Quarter as Growth in Bookings Slows
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @01:31AM (6 children)
I can't help thinking they'd rake in a whole lot more cash if they waited on their IPO until they were showing a profit. If they need the cash infusion to make ends meet, they're not really a fiscally sound investment to begin with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 18 2019, @01:38AM (3 children)
I don't think it's just you. I suppose the early investors are hoping to dump the whole steaming pile on some other sucker at this point.
Usually that's done by selling shares to the public, so where is the current lot of money coming from? Also why would anyone loan these guys $1 billion every few months?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @02:09AM (2 children)
Surely this type of circus financing HAS to come to a sticky end? Sounds like Uber are in the already-should-be-dead category. Makes you wonder just who has what agenda and keeps dumping in cash 'until it works'...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:23AM
Nah, rule of thumb for any new business is expect to lose significant amounts of money for the first three years even if you're doing everything pretty well. The larger the scale you try to place your business on, the more risk you run of reaching the black either taking longer or never happening at all. So, the already-should-be-dead thing isn't really as legit as you'd assume.
The rest? Yeah, I wouldn't drop good money into a company that hasn't generated dime one of profit and has no sound projections of being able to next year but there are plenty of people who are big gambling fans and absolutely would. Which is to say some people are fools and you know what they say about fools and their money.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 18 2019, @03:43AM
Eventually, it will.
Many will (financially) die in the process until this will happen, though, and they won't necessary be among the "early round investment angels" - the vulture capitalists invented this game. And many of the game rules aren't public enough.
Agenda: we (the vulture capitalists) are greedy, lets exploit the greed and gullibility of others.
1. we create a "business" which we will assert it will be profitable if it reaches a big size quickly [wikipedia.org] (use Google and FB as examples)
2. we invest some hundred of millions into it, in many investment rounds, to create and feed the necessary buzz. We'll take care to do it taking some preferential share types (to be paid on call at the "market value" if we want to retreat earlier)
3. as the time progresses and the business shows growth in "consumer interest", we "generously" open investment rounds to others - pension/equity funds, etc - to the tune of billions to hunded billions. Of course, we'll pay and publish "market value estimates" because the JOBS act allow us to keep mum about our finances before reaching a certain size [wikipedia.org]
4. if the business shows growth and maybe it is actually an unicorn, we'll go public and we made it. If it fizzles and the sucker pool show signs of going dry, we are going to recoup our investment "at the market value" well ahead of the others due to the "preferential shares" that we owned. Otherwise, we'll continue keeping up anyway as long as the sucker pool still has plenty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by darkfeline on Monday February 18 2019, @07:53AM (1 child)
> they need the cash infusion
That's not quite the right way to look at it. Uber's goal is/was to burn money until it achieves a monopoly and then jack prices up and make amazing profits. However it seems like they're having trouble fighting that war of attrition. On the west front, Uber is breaking too many laws, on the east front Uber is not breaking enough laws, and on the AI front Waymo looks to be leading the self-driving future. They're running out of money, but since they haven't achieved a monopoly they can't just jack up prices to turn a profit. Short of a miracle their only hope is to continue their original plan and hope they don't go bankrupt first. Truly they're caught between multiple rocks and hard places.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @09:35AM
If that's the case, they've been fucked right from the start. The startup cost in creating a competitor is fuck-all compared to most industries. They were never going to have a monopoly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.