Comment by nojvek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nojvek | Hacker News Reader

> Airport business outgrows overall Rides - In Q4 2019 our Airport business outgrew overall Rides. We now serve over 650 airports globally and continue to see our airport riders prefer our premium products. In 2020, we will continue to roll out our PIN product (riders receive a PIN and take it to the driver next in line rather than seeking out a specific driver), which has been well-received by riders and by airports.

Didn’t realize Airports would be such big business.

Overall it seems Uber is growing >20% in rides, trips and active users.

I remember when Facebook was valued at 100B without profits and I thought it was absurd. Now they’re a money raining machine with 500B valuation.

Year 2019

Total trips: 6.9 Billion Total bookings: $65 Billion Net revenue: $12.8 Billion

So they’re taking ~20% cut from every trip.

If Uber can reduce burn and be profitable this year, I’m willing to bet $1000, they’ll be >100B by end of 2021.

Uber eats and freight grew 70%. Wow!

Overall I think if Uber can maintain their market dominance for another decade or so while self driving cars really become viable and people trust them, I can see Uber easily being as large as Facebook.

Facebook is a software business. Its cost for acquiring new users is zero, and every new user makes them money. Uber is a traditional company with traditional expenses that wants you to believe it’s a software company. Big difference.

Not buying that argument. Facebook just ran a Super Bowl ad, which cost over $10 million just for 60 seconds of airtime (plus who knows how much they paid for production and celebrities). That's part of user acquisition. And it certainly doesn't cost zero to attract advertisers (especially large corporate ones) who actually provide revenue.

In both cases, they are so ubiquitous that they aren't really after new users, just increased engagement/usage. And I'd bet Uber's per-user usage growth exceeds Facebook's right now.

It was also their first super bowl ad ever, so they grew to their size without needing big ads.

The message of that ad has nothing to do with introducing their product to the five remaining people on Earth who do not know about FB. The message of that ad is, "Hi we're Facebook, sorry about the whole election thing, oh and please do not regulate us."

As a frequent business traveler, airport transportation is my primary use of Uber/Lyft.

It would be a lot higher percentage if I didn't just use a pre-arranged private car for my home airport. (I live far enough outside the city that Ubers for early-morning pickups, especially for an hour drive into the city, are very thin on the ground.) It would probably also be higher if fewer cities I traveled to had decent transit in from the airports.

But, otherwise, I have pretty much zero reason to use Uber/Lyft/taxis day-to-day.

I spend a few thousand dollars a year on airport transportation but very little of that goes to Uber.

> Didn’t realize Airports would be such big business.

Typically, I can expense rides to and from airport if I'm traveling for work, so I can be more generous and order a better car.

That and the auto-emailing of a receipt in $YourLanguage billed in $YourCurrency makes expensing it a breeze.

Dunno why the receipts are ~500kb though.

Curious, and again, I'm no expert. Uber Freight grew at 100%+ but what was the cost of capital, and what were the margins? A company out of Florida called Arrive logisitcs is the size of Uber Freight, old school company, and they also grew at that rate.

The argument with FB is diff, FB relies on network effects and a social graph, literally winner take all, you could argue that exists in localized taxi markets, but again, I think of Warren Buffet and "the cirlce of competence". How many investors are reading CH Robinsons annual reports and comparing said numbers? Just some thoughts. Remember, interest rates and capital markets the way they are today, may not be the way they are tomorrow. - WB

@nojvek

I’m no expect and very much speculating too.

My appreciation from Uber comes from my Travels. While Uber faces significant competition in US with lyft for rides, DoorDash, caviar, etc for food delivery, Convoy and tons of other companies for Freight, they are a global company.

I use the same Uber app for US, Australia, Dubai, Kenya, India. In a whole bunch of countries they’ve bought out the competition e.g Careem in Dubai and they’re operating like a monopoly. Multiple brands but Uber still owns the big pie.

They’re running operations at a massive scale. The operational costs bring customer support, software ops. Looks like a software company that way. They don’t own cars and drivers are contractors (sure changing in California) but remember Uber is a global company. A decent chunk of their revenue is non-US.

They may be negative in acquiring new drivers and customers but for their active base, they make a decent profit.

Freight right now is a very paper/pen based inefficient business with a bunch of middlemen. Uber is making that efficient just as they did to Taxis.

Let’s see how this all plays out but I am somewhat bullish on them.

>So they’re taking ~20% cut from every trip.

What I'm reading is I can order an Uber to two blocks away and say to the driver that I actually want to go to the other side of town, Uber says it's 50$ from which he'll get 40$, so how about I pay him 45$ in cash. We both win.

You're a genius. Were you previously unaware that Uber took a cut of the revenue?

Uber takes 25% service fee. I guess others things like credit card processing and misc expenses may bring that down to 20%.

It’s still good to see that 20% number on their earnings report.

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