Despite a storm of controversy swirling around Uber in recent months, the ride-hailing company’s bookings are up 17 percent, and losses are down 9 percent.
SAN FRANCISCO — Uber grew its bookings by 17 percent and shrunk its losses by 9 percent in the second quarter of this year, proving that the controversy surrounding the ride-hailing giant has yet to hit its business.
Uber saw gross bookings of $8.7 billion, up 17 percent from the quarter before and doubled from the prior year, the ride-hailing company confirmed to this news organization Wednesday. And while the San Francisco-based company is making more money on rides, it also continues to successfully trim its massive losses. The world’s most valuable startup reported adjusted net losses of $645 million — a drop of almost 9 percent from the quarter before, and 14 percent year-over-year.
Tech and politics news website Axios first reported the numbers.
The company pulled in $1.75 billion in adjusted net revenue in the second quarter, up from $1.5 billion the quarter before. Uber provided 150 percent more rides around the world.
The ride-hailing startup had $6.6 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter, down from $7.2 billion the quarter before.
Recent scandals have tarnished the company’s image, forced founder Travis Kalanick to resign as CEO, and plunged the board into a bitter power struggle that ended up in court. Uber recently brought former Attorney General Eric Holder in to investigate accusations sexual harassment, sexism and other inappropriate behavior at the company, leading to the firing of 20 employees. Uber also is fighting a lawsuit that claims the ride-hailing startup stole self-driving car trade secrets from rival Waymo. And Uber faces a criminal probe into its use of Greyball, a secretive software tool that employees used to evade law enforcement stings.
That series of events generated a publicity nightmare for Uber, spawning the #DeleteUber campaign, and giving smaller ride-hailing rival Lyft a push. But while Uber is attempting to clean up its image — searching for a new CEO and implementing a laundry list of changes suggested by Holder’s team — the company also has taken big steps to shrink its losses.
Last month Uber ceded control of the Russian market, merging with rival Yandex. A year ago, Uber sold its Chinese business to rival Didi Chuxing, after losing $2 billion during the two years it operated in the country.
