Uber lost another $1B last quarter

Uber posted losses of $1 billion on revenue of $3.1 billion for the first quarter of 2019 in what was the company’s first earnings report as a public company. Gross bookings rose 34% to $14.6 billion in the same time period, as Uber Eats continued to show notable growth.

Amid both positive and negative stock predictions, NYSE: UBER fluctuated ahead of the news, ultimately closing down .25% at $39.90 per share.

Analysts anticipated an adjusted net loss per share of 76 cents on earnings of about $3.1 billion, according to FactSet. Uber, in its IPO paperwork, said it expected first-quarter losses to fall between $1 billion and $1.1 billion.

“Earlier this month we took the important step of becoming a public company, and we are now focused on executing our strategy to become a one-stop shop for local transportation and commerce,” Uber chief Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement. “In the first quarter, engagement across our platform was higher than ever, with an average of 17 million trips per day and an annualized gross bookings run-rate of $59 billion.”

Uber has traded below its IPO price in the three weeks since its rocky debut on The New York Stock Exchange. The company priced its IPO at $45 per share in early May, raising $8.1 billion in the process. The following morning, the business opened at a disappointing $42 a share, sending shockwaves through the tech ecosystem, which had predicted an IPO pop on par with Lyft’s, at least.

Uber’s performance on the public market has been a letdown. Investors, even Wall Street experts, had anticipated an initial market cap in the ballpark of $100 billion. Instead, Uber currently sits at a valuation of about $67 billion, or $5 billion lower than the $72 billion valuation it earned with its last private financing.

Uber’s core business, ride-hailing, is growing much slower than other segments of the massive business. While overall revenues grew 20% from the same period last year, revenues in the company’s ride-hail department grew only 9%. Uber Eats revenue shot up 89% while its gross bookings grew 108%.

Uber’s competitor Lyft, for its part, is trading well below its IPO price of $72 per share, closing down 2.5% Thursday at $56 apiece. Its market cap today is approximately $16 billion, or just above its $15.1 billion Series I valuation. Lyft posted its first earnings report just days before Uber completed its historic IPO earlier this month.

Lyft posted first-quarter revenues of $776 million on losses of $1.14 billion, including $894 million in IPO-related expenses. The company’s revenues surpassed Wall Street estimates of $740 million while losses came in much higher than expected.

“The first quarter was a strong start to an important year, our first as a public company,” Lyft co-founder and chief executive officer Logan Green said in a statement. “Our performance was driven by the increased demand for our network and multi-modal platform, as Active Riders grew 46 percent and revenue grew 95 percent year-over-year. Transportation is one of the largest segments of our economy and we are still in the very early stages of an enormous secular shift from personal car ownership to Transportation-as-a-Service.”

Lyft said adjusted net losses came in at $211.5 million compared to $228.4 million in the first quarter of 2018. It expects revenue of more than $800 million on adjusted EBITDA losses of between $270 million and $280 million for the second quarter of 2019. For the entire year, Lyft projects roughly $3.3 billion in total revenue on adjusted EBITDA losses of about $1.2 billion.

Pinterest, another well-known unicorn to recently IPO, shared tepid financials in what was also its first earnings report as a public company. The visual search engine posted revenues of $202 million on losses of $41.4 million for the three months ending March 31, 2019. The numbers surpassed Wall Street’s revenue estimates of about $200 million and represented significant growth from last year’s Q1 revenues of $131 million. Losses, however, came in roughly three times higher than estimates of 32 cents per share.

Pinterest went public in April, rising 25% during its first day trading on the NYSE. The company is now trading well below its $45 IPO price, however, closing Thursday at $25.5 per share with a market cap of about $14 billion.

Uber and Lyft’s lukewarm IPOs have shed light on Wall Street’s uncertainty toward highly priced unicorns. Many are now questioning how future venture-backed companies, particularly those in unproven industries like ride-hailing or autonomous vehicles, will fare as public companies.

This post is updating.