Uber reports $1.8 billion loss nearly six months after going public

Uber is under increasing pressure to demonstrate its ability to turn a profit. Photo / AP

Uber posted a US$1.2 billion ($1.8b) loss Monday on healthy revenue growth, a better-than-expected result nearly six months after its May initial public offering.

The loss was narrower than the company's US$5.2b second-quarter deficit, beating analysts' expectations, though it comes ahead of a potential stock sell-off later this week when employees are able to start selling their stock options.

The company is under increasing pressure to demonstrate its ability to turn a profit as rival Lyft posts shrinking losses and better-than-expected growth figures half a year after going public. Uber's valuation has been sliced by a third since it was listed on the stock market at US$45 in May. The stock hovered at about US$30 on Monday, falling in after-hours trading likely due to the substantial loss.

Uber has laid off nearly a thousand employees since going public, including in marketing and communications, product and engineering, and teams such as its self-driving and food delivery units. The company has also shifted to a more experimental rather than a research-intensive focus for developing products, an effort to streamline its research and development process by delivering more quickly on what users prefer. It's also focusing on fewer of them.

Meanwhile, the company's employee lockup period, where there are restrictions on whether workers can sell their stock, was expected to lift this week, raising concerns about a potential rush to exercise those options. The rush to the market - with over US$20b worth of stock suddenly in play - "could cause an avalanche of selling as early investors and insiders hit the bid," a major Wall Street concern, said Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, in his earnings preview.

Lyft's stock climbed Wednesday, after it reported strong revenue growth and a narrower quarter-over-quarter loss. The company also revised its financial outlook to predict higher-than-expected growth, ushering in investor confidence - though Uber remains the dominant player in the ride-hailing space.

Analysts had expected Uber to report stronger revenue and a narrower loss, given the cutbacks and other efforts to make the company run more efficiently. They were heavily focused this week on whether Uber could maintain enough cash on hand to keep itself afloat in the face of significant losses, even as the company's dominant market share - 70 per cent or more, according to IPO documents from both companies - gave it an upside over its rival.

Uber said revenue was up 30 per cent compared with that from the same quarter last year, and the company closed out the quarter with more cash than the prior one, following asset sales and investments.