Uber bookings hit all-time high in past three months as workers return to offices

theguardian.com:

Uber’s bookings hit an all-time high in the last three months as anxiety over Covid-19 eased and workers headed back to the office.

Passengers took a total of 1.87bn trips on Uber during the spring and early summer, the company reported on Tuesday, a 24% increase compared with the same time last year. That’s about 21m trips a day, on average.

Wall Street overlooked a huge loss for the quarter and shares jumped more than 12% before the opening bell on Tuesday.

Revenue at the San Francisco company more than doubled to $8.07bn, bolstered by a change in the business model for its UK mobility business and the acquisition of Transplace by Uber Freight. This beat the $7.36bn that analysts polled by FactSet predicted.

Gross bookings surged 33% to $29.08bn, an all-time high and Uber Technologies foresees third-quarter gross bookings between $29bn and $30bn.

Uber lost $2.6bn for the three months ending 30 June. This included a $1.7bn related to Uber’s equity investments and $470m in stock-based compensation expense. Uber has regained a lot of ground since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 triggered government lockdowns that kept most people at home.

The company pivoted at the time by building up a then-nascent food-delivery division, although that segment isn’t growing as rapidly as last year with so many people returning to restaurants.

The company, like many others, has struggled to find drivers since the pandemic hit. But that shortage appears to be easing. “We saw an acceleration in both active and new driver growth in the quarter,” its chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said. The company ended the quarter with a record number of drivers and food-delivery couriers.