<story><title>Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-third-quarter-loss-is-said-to-widen-to-1-46-billion</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ihsw2</author><text>The idea is to drag the entire ride hailing industry underwater long enough to drown out competitors, and the trick is to do this without drowning themselves in the process.&lt;p&gt;This is the nature of &amp;quot;predatory&amp;quot; pricing.&lt;p&gt;There is something to be said for volume and if a couple competitors die in the process then Uber&amp;#x27;s volume can only go up. Unfortunately their competitors have found a variety of ways to keep from being dragged down (eg: regulatory support of municipal taxi orgs) or ways to keep oxygen expenditure stable (eg: controlled expenditures through higher pricing and &amp;quot;friendlier&amp;quot; demeanor).</text></item><item><author>BinaryIdiot</author><text>Yeah I am really perplexed with Uber&amp;#x27;s business model. They can&amp;#x27;t survive much longer and they can&amp;#x27;t keep getting injections of cash to stay alive, can they? It&amp;#x27;s rumored they&amp;#x27;ll IPO in 2019, if I remember correctly, which means they have to somehow survive until then to at least reach that stage.&lt;p&gt;Are they planning to raise prices? Cut employees? What are they planning on doing here?</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>Uber had $6.6bn on hand at the end of June [1]. That means they are down to $5.1bn.&lt;p&gt;Absent cost-cutting, that implies a 9 to 12 month runway. Even if SoftBank injects $1bn, that could only mean a few months’ runway. A large fine in the Waymo case [2] could literally bankrupt them.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;uber-is-still-burning-cash-at-a-rate-of-2-billion-a-year&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;uber-is-still-burning-cas...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;waymo-uber-trial.html?referer=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;waymo-uber-tr...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bob_theslob646</author><text>Is that really the idea? Do you know how large the ride hailing market is?&lt;p&gt;I am almost positive the point of subsidizing the price of the rides is to get you addicted&amp;#x2F; build up a habit or get you comfortable using the service.&lt;p&gt;I think they are aware of the competition and are comfortable owning 60+% versus trying to get 80%+.&lt;p&gt;Their revenue is growing which is still wild despite bad press.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Unfortunately their competitors have found a variety of ways to keep from being dragged down&lt;p&gt;Not a bad point but it is highly dependent on the market. In the US, Uber is 4x Lyft in market share.&lt;p&gt;A common problem drivers cite is that Lyft pays better, but the volume of Uber riders is much much larger.&lt;p&gt;I am not a fan of Uber, just extremely bitter at poor journalism, hence , I stopped reading at the first paragraph.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber’s Losses Widen as SoftBank Launches Bid to Buy Shares</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/uber-s-third-quarter-loss-is-said-to-widen-to-1-46-billion</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ihsw2</author><text>The idea is to drag the entire ride hailing industry underwater long enough to drown out competitors, and the trick is to do this without drowning themselves in the process.&lt;p&gt;This is the nature of &amp;quot;predatory&amp;quot; pricing.&lt;p&gt;There is something to be said for volume and if a couple competitors die in the process then Uber&amp;#x27;s volume can only go up. Unfortunately their competitors have found a variety of ways to keep from being dragged down (eg: regulatory support of municipal taxi orgs) or ways to keep oxygen expenditure stable (eg: controlled expenditures through higher pricing and &amp;quot;friendlier&amp;quot; demeanor).</text></item><item><author>BinaryIdiot</author><text>Yeah I am really perplexed with Uber&amp;#x27;s business model. They can&amp;#x27;t survive much longer and they can&amp;#x27;t keep getting injections of cash to stay alive, can they? It&amp;#x27;s rumored they&amp;#x27;ll IPO in 2019, if I remember correctly, which means they have to somehow survive until then to at least reach that stage.&lt;p&gt;Are they planning to raise prices? Cut employees? What are they planning on doing here?</text></item><item><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>Uber had $6.6bn on hand at the end of June [1]. That means they are down to $5.1bn.&lt;p&gt;Absent cost-cutting, that implies a 9 to 12 month runway. Even if SoftBank injects $1bn, that could only mean a few months’ runway. A large fine in the Waymo case [2] could literally bankrupt them.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;uber-is-still-burning-cash-at-a-rate-of-2-billion-a-year&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;uber-is-still-burning-cas...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;waymo-uber-trial.html?referer=https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mobile.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;waymo-uber-tr...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wpietri</author><text>Even if they manage to kill their competition -- and I&amp;#x27;m not expecting they will -- I don&amp;#x27;t understand what their endgame is. I don&amp;#x27;t see what their moat is. Ridesharing companies are not hard or expensive to start. They&amp;#x27;ll have a hard time extracting monopoly rents, and there isn&amp;#x27;t much of an economy of scale they can reap.&lt;p&gt;And once autonomous cars become part of the picture, I think they&amp;#x27;re in an even worse position. Suddenly they&amp;#x27;re not competing just against would-be moguls. Now they&amp;#x27;re up against the car companies, who have strong brands, deep pockets, and the ability to make cars at cost. Imagine, for example, BMW extending their leasing business to on-demand car use. We also have existing car rental companies that will be eager to get in on the action. And that&amp;#x27;s not counting the zillion other outfits with strong brands and a taste for expansion. Apple, for example. Virgin. Amazon.&lt;p&gt;I just don&amp;#x27;t see how this ends well for them. At best, I think 10 years from now they&amp;#x27;ll be the next Groupon: the hot startup everybody everybody loved but now nobody talks much about and is trading at a fraction of their peak valuation.</text></comment>