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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Uber lost another $1.1 billion in the third quarter of 2019, the company announced on Monday. This wasn't a surprise: Uber lost about the same amount in the first quarter of 2019 and lost even more last quarter.

Yet the company argues that things aren't as bad as that headline figure suggests. To show why, Uber broke its earnings down by business area, distinguishing its core "rides" app from Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and other operations.

Uber says that, if you exclude certain non-operating expenses—mainly interest, depreciation, and stock-based compensation—the "rides" app actually earned a substantial $631 million profit. That's enough to cover the company's core operating expenses, the company said. But Uber's profitability was dragged down by losses in its other businesses—mainly a $316 million loss from Uber Eats.

Of course, interest, depreciation, and stock-based compensation are real costs. So the fact that Uber looks less unprofitable excluding them isn't going to be particularly reassuring to Uber investors.

But the reason these numbers could ultimately be good news for investors is that they suggest Uber's core rides business might not be perpetually money-losing. If the "EBIDTA" profitability of the ride-hailing business continues to improve—it grew from $416 million in the year-ago quarter to $631 million last quarter on an EBITDA basis—the company could eventually reach honest-to-goodness profitability.

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