Just curious - wouldn't the revenue of companies like Uber always be super high, but with low profit margin. Kinda like Walmart... Because lots of money switching hands is just what the company does.
(*) Unlike other companies like Apple, for example, that sell products they manufacture
In Uber's case though, their costs could be very low. They push off the vast majority of liability into their not-employees (for now), and don't have any capital expenses to speak of.
20% actually but if the costs are low and volume is high, that piece of pie would be worth a lot. Also ~20% is a much higher margin than what the retails operate on.
Uber spends a ton of money on three areas: R&D, new customer and driver acquisition (including marketing too), and legal/lobbying. These areas may taper down in growth in the future, but it's unlikely to shrink.
Also there is the huge red flag they may be forced to hire the drivers as employees.
Uber is paying for these costs through the fares their drivers collect. Non-ride insurance and vehicle capital costs do not show up as a line item on Uber's cash flow statement, but the fares cover them. Uber has other capital costs though.
The article is terribly mislabeled. Uber's bookings are scheduled to reach 26bill, not its revenue. Supposedly this year they will reach 10 bill in bookings, which would provide revenue of about 2 billion [1].
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[ 7.5 ms ] story [ 45.5 ms ] thread(*) Unlike other companies like Apple, for example, that sell products they manufacture
Also there is the huge red flag they may be forced to hire the drivers as employees.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Does the cited revenue number include what Uber collected on behalf of their contractors?
They could be a super unicorn with $87+ billion.
https://archive.is/pokLR
[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-uber-tech-fundr...