Taxi Driver Online

Current share price $75.23 up a bit.

US FTC sues Uber, alleging deceptive subscription practices

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1drkq0dy07o

The US Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the ride hailing and delivery company engaged in deceptive billing and cancellation practices.

The consumer protection watchdog accused Uber of charging customers for its Uber One subscription service without getting their consent and making it hard for users to cancel.

"The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on behalf of the American people," FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, a Trump appointee, said in a statement.

An Uber spokesperson denied the allegations, and it was "disappointed" that the FTC chose to move forward with the lawsuit.

Launched in 2021, the Uber One subscription service promises users perks including no-fee delivery and discounts on some rides and orders. The service can be purchased for $9.99 a month or $96 a year.

In its complaint filed on Monday, the FTC said that Uber has made suspending subscriptions "extremely difficult" for consumers, who can be subjected to navigating as many as 23 screens and taking up to 32 actions if they try to cancel.

In a point-by-point response, Uber disputed that allegation.

"[C]ancellations can now be done anytime in-app and take most people 20 seconds or less," Uber spokesman Ryan Thornton said in a statement.

Uber said that previously, to cancel, the consumer had to contact support within 48 hours of their next billing period but said that is no longer the case and customers can cancel at any time.

The FTC also alleges that many consumers said they were enrolled in Uber One without giving their consent. The complaint cites one consumer who claimed they were charged despite not having an Uber account.

Uber said in its response that it "does not sign up or charge consumers without their consent."

The legal action against Uber marks the FTC's first lawsuit filed against a major US tech company since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in January.

The agency's case against Meta - initiated during the first Trump administration - is now in its second week on trial.

The FTC alleges the company, which was previously known as Facebook, secured a social media monopoly with its acquisitions of photosharing app Instagram in 2012 and messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.

Meta has said the lawsuit from the FTC, which reviewed and approved those acquisitions, is "misguided."

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IDFIMH

A nice easter present for Ubers lawyers

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Uber falls short amid economic concerns and cheaper transport

https://www.thetimes.com/business-money ... -9fmpxbd23

Ride bookings and delivery orders at Uber Technologies fell shy of expectations in the first quarter, stoking fears of slowing demand against a gloomy economic outlook.

The San-Francisco-based company said gross bookings rose 18 per cent to $42.8 billion in the three months to the end of March, falling slightly short of analyst forecasts.

Uber’s overall revenue for the first quarter rose 17 per cent to $11.5 billion, which was also below Wall Street estimates, while adjusted profit grew 35 per cent to $1.9 billion.

Revenue from its ride-hailing business, which was affected by the Los Angeles wildfires and heavy snow in parts of the United States, rose 15 per cent while delivery revenue rose 18 per cent.

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, the company’s chief financial officer, said the strengthening of the US dollar against Brazilian, Mexican and Argentine currencies had resulted “in an outsized headwind” for the company.

Uber has struggled to match the high growth from the post-pandemic quarters and is also contending with lower ride prices with some customers seeking cheaper transport options.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the company’s chief executive, said it aims to keep “prices as low as possible” adding that the autonomous vehicles segment “is the single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber”.

In February, Uber launched “price lock pass”, a $2.99 monthly subscription offering consistent fares on designated routes, to attract budget-conscious commuters, competing with a similar feature that its rival Lyft started offering last year.

Shares in Uber fell $2.41, or 2.8 per cent, to $83.42 in New York as the first quarter results overshadowed a strong outlook for the current quarter. Its stock has risen roughly 42 per cent this year, making it among the top ten gainers in the US’s benchmark S&P 500 index.

The company expects bookings to be between $45.75 billion and $47.25 billion for the present quarter. This compares with Wall Street expectations of $45.8 billion. Uber anticipates it will deliver adjusted profits between $2.02 billion and $2.12 billion in the quarter.

It has also forecast a 1.5 per cent currency-related drag on gross bookings growth in the quarter owing to a stronger US dollar reducing the value of earnings from international markets.

Uber, founded in 2009 by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, owns one of the world’s most popular taxi-hailing apps and also has interests in restaurant delivery, bike-sharing services and self-driving cars. Kalanick departed in 2017 after sexual harassment and privacy scandals at the business. The company has faced the threat of bans in cities including London and repeated legal challenges over its employment responsibilities towards its drivers.

Uber, which could benefit from autonomous vehicle technology, has struck a number of partnerships over the past year. In March it started offering driverless rides with Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit in Austin, Texas.

Khosrowshahi added that there “is still a lot of runway for growth” in its mobility division, matching customers with drivers, saying its key focus is to advance transportation in the suburbs and more sparse markets.

“Historically, rideshare has struggled in these areas because fewer drivers naturally means less reliability. Technology like ours can help to bridge that gap.”

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IDFIMH

and of course in the UK their delivery rival deliveroo has just been swallowed up by door dash

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

must be a real struggle

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

and here's a nice youtube analysis video to put things into perspective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBjiEAlLgW0

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

It’s quite a good explainer - for Uber to win, everybody else has to lose. The driver-experience generally seems to be about diminishing returns more than sunlit uplands.

Currently $88.64, slightly down on the day.

https://qz.com/uber-20-billion-buyback- ... nings-2025

Going to buy back $20 billion worth of shares, which surely should have made the share price rise.

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IDFIMH

this thread started 10/05/2019.......

UBER are still romping ahead

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I don't think even Uber thinks they are romping anywhere.

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IDFIMH

Currently $92.63, about 5% down on the week, but about 8% up over the last 6 months.

Uber profit falls short after $479mn legal charge despite strong growth

https://www.ft.com/content/9ceb0184-79d ... ea3d3909d8

Uber posted weaker than expected third-quarter profits on Tuesday after taking a one-off legal charge of almost $500mn, while trying to reassure investors it is entering the busy festive season with “exceptional momentum”.

The number of Uber customers who took a ride in a given month topped 150mn for the first time during the three months to September, as quarterly revenue grew 20 per cent year on year to $13.5bn.

Gross bookings in the quarter — a measure of customers’ total spending across all its business units — exceeded analyst estimates, coming in at $49.7bn.

“We enter the busiest period of the year with exceptional momentum and expect to again deliver another quarter of strong top-line performance,” chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said.

The company expects gross bookings for the fourth quarter, which includes the festive travel period in key markets such as the US and Europe, to be between $52.25bn and $53.75bn. Analysts had previously estimated the figure would be $52.4bn.

But while operating profits rose 5 per cent to $1.1bn in the latest quarter compared with the same period a year ago, the figure missed consensus forecasts of $1.6bn, largely because it was forced to set aside $479mn for potential legal and tax settlements.

Uber declined to provide specific details on this legal “reserve”, saying only that it related to “significant legal proceedings or governmental investigations related to worker classification definitions” or charges arising from tax probes. These were “unpredictable in both magnitude and timing”, it warned.

Uber’s net income, however, jumped by 154 per cent to $6.6bn, largely due to a one-off $4.9bn benefit from tax credits that were accrued when the company was lossmaking, as well as a $1.5bn boost from its equity investments.

Shares in Uber closed down 5 per cent on Tuesday, after comments from its CEO that its push into autonomous vehicles would take “a few years” to make money.

The company’s shares have been up more than 50 per cent in the year-to-date, amid strong investor appetite for tech stocks during an artificial intelligence boom.

Uber is balancing a host of investments in autonomous vehicles and AI as it undertakes a strategic pivot aimed at diversifying its revenue streams.

Khosrowshahi on Tuesday outlined six areas of “strategic focus”, including plans to expand further into the global grocery and retail market, while also encouraging drivers and delivery riders to switch between roles and even complete assignments for the company’s new AI data unit.

Uber launched a pilot last month that will see some drivers in the US given the option to complete tasks including data labelling to help train AI models for corporate customers.

Khosrowshahi said that the company would also do more with fleet partners as it increased the number of robotaxis deployed on its platform. It has signed deals with more than a dozen autonomous vehicle providers including Alphabet’s Waymo to roll out autonomous vehicles in US markets including Austin, Atlanta and Phoenix.

Uber said last week that it would launch robotaxi services in San Francisco next year after committing to purchase at least 20,000 vehicles from electric-car maker Lucid and AV start-up Nuro.

On a call with analysts, Khosrowshahi said that Uber planned to “lean in with our balance sheet early on” to build up fleets of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on its app but that he ultimately believed private investors would bear those upfront capital costs, as robotaxis scale up.

“As we’re building out our supply base, we’ll lose money in AV,” Khosrowshahi said. “I expect that AV won’t be profitable for a few years.”

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IDFIMH

Currently $77.40, which is 5% down on the day.

Which is quite interesting, given their latest results are due tomorrow.

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IDFIMH

Down 5% on the day to $74.02.

Uber hits 200mn users as profits fall short

https://www.ft.com/content/3f066086-696 ... f8ee6e30dc

Uber’s customer base jumped to more than 200mn active users for the first time at the end of 2025 but its growth spurt came at a cost to profits, compounding investor jitters about the impact of robotaxis on its business.

San Francisco-based Uber posted weaker than expected fourth-quarter profits on Wednesday and provided a forecast that appeared to underwhelm investors, despite reporting strong bookings and a confident top-line growth outlook for the first quarter of 2026.

The ride-hailing group said operating profits for the last quarter were $1.77bn, up 130 per cent year on year but below analysts’ expectations of $1.85bn.

Uber’s shares fell as much as 10 per cent in pre-market trading after its results were published. Its stock had already fallen by more than 20 per cent since September’s all-time high as investors fretted about the impact of rival groups expanding their driverless taxi services around the world.

But the stock clawed back some of Wednesday’s losses after Uber’s chief executive reassured investors on a conference call that its margins on rides served using autonomous vehicles would be “very similar to other products out there”.

“In the deals that we’re striking today with various AV partners, at scale we are going to have healthy economics based on current consumer fares,” said Dara Khosrowshahi.

Uber said the number of people using its transport and food delivery apps climbed 18 per cent year on year to 202mn in the final months of 2025, which is typically its busiest quarter of the year. It hit 100mn monthly users in 2019 and reached the new milestone sooner than analysts had forecast.

“Very few companies are able to generate this much growth at this scale,” said Khosrowshahi. “Yet despite our size, we are still in the early stages of customer acquisition, which continues to be the primary contributor to our growth.”

That scale and long-standing experience of coordinating drivers and passengers made Uber well positioned for the rapid growth in robotaxis, he said, while acknowledging that “it is clear investors continue to have questions” about how that would affect its bottom line.

Uber is working with robotaxi companies including Alphabet’s Waymo, China’s Baidu and UK start-up Wayve. Last week, it made a $500mn investment in Canada’s Waabi.

Khosrowshahi said its progress in AVs “will not be a straight line” but maintained he was bullish about the company’s strategy, including plans to deploy in cities such as San Francisco over the next 12 months. He noted that, globally, robotaxis accounted for just 0.1 per cent of all rideshare trips at present.

As investors continue to debate whether robotaxis will be a boost or burden to Uber, its existing business has been accelerating after a period of subdued growth.

Uber’s gross bookings in the fourth quarter — a measure of customers’ total spending across all its business units — topped market estimates, coming in at $54.1bn.

The company said it anticipated US bookings to accelerate this year on the back of a “healthier pricing environment”, as previous years’ pressures from rising insurance costs — which were passed on to consumers in the form of higher fares — have abated.

However, Uber forecast adjusted earnings for the first quarter of 2026 of between $2.37bn and $2.47bn. Analysts had forecast $2.44bn, according to consensus estimates from Visible Alpha.

Uber’s net profit for the fourth quarter was $296mn, weighed down by a $1.6bn “headwind” from its various equity stakes.

The company has invested in several publicly listed companies whose shares slid last year, including electric-car maker Lucid, Asian food delivery and transport app Grab and autonomous vehicle developer Aurora. It has also struck more than a dozen partnerships and investment deals with AV companies in the past year.

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, Uber’s chief financial officer, said the company’s net income figure would “continue to see swings” quarter to quarter due to the performance of its investments.

Khosrowshahi said the company was well positioned for a “multitrillion-dollar” market for robotaxis, arguing that it had a “clear path to becoming the largest facilitator of [AV] trips in the world”.

But analysts said ahead of earnings that the company was facing potential disruption from robotaxi operators.

Waymo, which this week closed a new $16bn fundraising to value it at $126bn, partners with Uber in secondary markets but has opted to go it alone in major cities such as San Francisco and London. Elon Musk’s Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox have also pushed ahead with their own networks instead of integrating with Uber’s marketplace.

“While their core businesses remain healthy, AV-related headline risk continues to drive volatility,” said Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JPMorgan.

Uber also disclosed on Wednesday that Mahendra-Rajah would step down from his role later this month. He will be replaced by Balaji Krishnamurthy, who previously led investor relations.

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IDFIMH

Since Uber went public, its shares have grown about 55%.

The US S&P 500 stock market has grown about 190%.

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IDFIMH