<story><title>Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-posts-708-million-loss-as-finance-head-leaves-1496272500</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpatokal</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re ignoring that businessmen who travel all the time are very heavy users of Uber and similar services.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not even a frequent flyer, but I&amp;#x27;d estimate that a good 80-90% of my Uber usage is travel-related.  At home, I have tons of other options to get around, but on a tight schedule in an unfamiliar city, I basically default to Uber all the time, because I rarely have the time or risk tolerance explore alternatives.&lt;p&gt;One of the things I love about Uber is that I can use it in SF, Singapore, Manila, Helsinki, wherever.  It also works sufficiently well that I have near-zero incentive to try out Lyft&amp;#x2F;Grab&amp;#x2F;Ola&amp;#x2F;whatever, particularly since this usually involves yet another tedious sign-up process of entering credit cards and PIN confirmations and yadda yadda.</text></item><item><author>beager</author><text>I believe that Lyft doesn&amp;#x27;t have to compete globally with Uber to be a successful business in its own right. I also believe that Uber isn&amp;#x27;t immune from being crippled by competitors that operate in a very small but key subset of Uber&amp;#x27;s markets.&lt;p&gt;There is very little network effect with Uber. Sure, you can hop off a plane anywhere in the world and open Uber to get a car, but that is a very small number of people overall. I would contend that most people use whichever ride-sharing service is available and most economical in their own city, and if that same service is available on the rare occasion that they travel, then bonus.&lt;p&gt;Of course, if Uber beats everyone else to the punch with proprietary self-driving cars and undercuts prices profitably, they win. There seem to be some very large issues with that, however.</text></item><item><author>encoderer</author><text>&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;conjecture&amp;gt;&lt;p&gt;Lyft just isn&amp;#x27;t a real competitor outside of major American cities right now. Go to a city without an international airport and see how many lyft drivers there are.</text></item><item><author>objclxt</author><text>&amp;gt; And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride. Prices don&amp;#x27;t have to rise 20% to break even, prices have to rise 6%&lt;p&gt;No, they have to rise by more than that. Your math is technically correct (a 6% rise gives you an extra $700 million), but you are assuming that the price increase goes entirely to Uber. There is no way Uber can increase prices by 6% and give none of that upside to their drivers - they would flee to platforms offering better terms (like Lyft).&lt;p&gt;If Uber was to be profitable this past quarter they wouldn&amp;#x27;t have needed an extra $700 million in fares, but an extra &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;2.3 billion&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; - which is a 20% rise.</text></item><item><author>bpodgursky</author><text>$708 million loss, narrowed from $991 million last quarter&lt;p&gt;18% growth from last quarter (note: that&amp;#x27;s not Y&amp;#x2F;Y.  this is ridiculously fast, given the huge base.)&lt;p&gt;708mm loss &amp;#x2F; 3.4 billion in revenue is only about 20% under even.  And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride.  Prices don&amp;#x27;t have to rise 20% to break even, prices have to rise 6% (assuming no efficiency improvements via pool etc, which is frankly ridiculous)&lt;p&gt;Yeah... Uber is doing fine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CPLX</author><text>Yeah but frequent flying businessmen are also the kind of people who will do research and pick better options quickly if they are available, it&amp;#x27;s not plausible for Uber to have a permanent monopoly.&lt;p&gt;One of Uber&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;massive&lt;/i&gt; problems is lack of predictability. When going to&amp;#x2F;from the airport I can&amp;#x27;t fuck around with surge pricing, I need to be able to have a travel budget that doesn&amp;#x27;t change sharply for situations out of my control. I don&amp;#x27;t want to miss planes. A service like Blacklane (which by the way is now in the US and is growing very quickly yet seems to rarely make the articles that talk about Uber&amp;#x27;s competition) neatly solves that problem for you, and generally has better service and more professional drivers.&lt;p&gt;I am a frequent flier and your idea that there&amp;#x27;s zero-incentive to have a backup or alternate option to Uber ready to go doesn&amp;#x27;t resonate with me. Uber isn&amp;#x27;t reliable enough to forget about other options, and as long as those exist and are viable Uber&amp;#x27;s supposed &amp;quot;monopoly&amp;quot; strategy will likely be regarded in retrospect as expensive and stupid waste of capital.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber Posts $708M Loss as Finance Head Leaves</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-posts-708-million-loss-as-finance-head-leaves-1496272500</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpatokal</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re ignoring that businessmen who travel all the time are very heavy users of Uber and similar services.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not even a frequent flyer, but I&amp;#x27;d estimate that a good 80-90% of my Uber usage is travel-related.  At home, I have tons of other options to get around, but on a tight schedule in an unfamiliar city, I basically default to Uber all the time, because I rarely have the time or risk tolerance explore alternatives.&lt;p&gt;One of the things I love about Uber is that I can use it in SF, Singapore, Manila, Helsinki, wherever.  It also works sufficiently well that I have near-zero incentive to try out Lyft&amp;#x2F;Grab&amp;#x2F;Ola&amp;#x2F;whatever, particularly since this usually involves yet another tedious sign-up process of entering credit cards and PIN confirmations and yadda yadda.</text></item><item><author>beager</author><text>I believe that Lyft doesn&amp;#x27;t have to compete globally with Uber to be a successful business in its own right. I also believe that Uber isn&amp;#x27;t immune from being crippled by competitors that operate in a very small but key subset of Uber&amp;#x27;s markets.&lt;p&gt;There is very little network effect with Uber. Sure, you can hop off a plane anywhere in the world and open Uber to get a car, but that is a very small number of people overall. I would contend that most people use whichever ride-sharing service is available and most economical in their own city, and if that same service is available on the rare occasion that they travel, then bonus.&lt;p&gt;Of course, if Uber beats everyone else to the punch with proprietary self-driving cars and undercuts prices profitably, they win. There seem to be some very large issues with that, however.</text></item><item><author>encoderer</author><text>&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;conjecture&amp;gt;&lt;p&gt;Lyft just isn&amp;#x27;t a real competitor outside of major American cities right now. Go to a city without an international airport and see how many lyft drivers there are.</text></item><item><author>objclxt</author><text>&amp;gt; And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride. Prices don&amp;#x27;t have to rise 20% to break even, prices have to rise 6%&lt;p&gt;No, they have to rise by more than that. Your math is technically correct (a 6% rise gives you an extra $700 million), but you are assuming that the price increase goes entirely to Uber. There is no way Uber can increase prices by 6% and give none of that upside to their drivers - they would flee to platforms offering better terms (like Lyft).&lt;p&gt;If Uber was to be profitable this past quarter they wouldn&amp;#x27;t have needed an extra $700 million in fares, but an extra &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;2.3 billion&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; - which is a 20% rise.</text></item><item><author>bpodgursky</author><text>$708 million loss, narrowed from $991 million last quarter&lt;p&gt;18% growth from last quarter (note: that&amp;#x27;s not Y&amp;#x2F;Y.  this is ridiculously fast, given the huge base.)&lt;p&gt;708mm loss &amp;#x2F; 3.4 billion in revenue is only about 20% under even.  And what most people miss, is that the 3.4 billion is the 30% cut Uber takes from a ride.  Prices don&amp;#x27;t have to rise 20% to break even, prices have to rise 6% (assuming no efficiency improvements via pool etc, which is frankly ridiculous)&lt;p&gt;Yeah... Uber is doing fine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Bakary</author><text>I think their point was that well-off people who travel all the time are still a tiny portion of the population.</text></comment>