Uber wants to go public in 2019

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 19.11.2018

Slow growth and steady losses

Uber, the U.S. transport broker, wants to go public next year. However, the company is characterized by slow growth and continuous losses. In the third quarter, bookings barely increased, with revenue growing by only five percent compared to the previous quarter to $2.95 billion.

Nevertheless, compared to the previous year, an increase of 38 percent was achieved. Overall, Uber generated this quarter only 1.07 billion dollars after the previous quarter with 891 million dollars. Another billion-dollar loss that has been running through the company since it was founded.

Uber is constantly investing in new business areas, such as the delivery of food, electric bicycles and scooters as well as freight offers. Now Uber has to show that the company is in the black before going public next year. This could possibly already take place in the first half of 2019 in order to be ahead of the US rival Lyft.

However, observers estimate that due to the ongoing losses, a merger of the transport service with rivals in India and the Middle East is not unlikely. For example, Uber and Ola from India have the same major shareholder, the Japanese financial investor Softbank. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi himself has already exited from some foreign markets and cancelled several costly projects, such as self-driving trucks.