Uber has a gross profit margin of 35.7%, which changed some -7.3% from three years ago, indicating that the business is still struggling with the cost structure. These results may further shift in the future, if gas prices and other inflation impacted inputs keep rising.
If levelling up means Bodmin is as important as Birmingham, we are fucked. We can’t compete with the USA, France, Germany and the Netherlands from Bodmin, as lovely as it no doubt is.
They’re complementary. Focusing on the issues facing Bodmin doesn’t preclude a Canary Wharf style project somewhere else.
When everything is important, nothing is important.
In truth, the legitimate issues faced by Bodmin are not at all comparable to the issues around Birmingham, and it does the country no favours to pretend otherwise.
What percentage of taxis in London are traditional black cabs? There still seem to be awful lot of them around. Maybe London is different to other cities.
Kemi is being largely ignored/missed by BBC News at Ten, ITV News at 10 and Newsnight in their reporting. Yet she is in 4th place after the first round of voting and has never held a cabinet post. She is not far behind the Foreign Secretary who has been planning her leadership campaign for a few years. An extraordinary achievement already.
If Kemi becomes next PM they will all say - what a shock! But there is strong evidence now that a shock could be on the cards. There's only a handful of candidates can win and she is one of them.
PBers have worked out she can win. Mainstream media. Not so much. Unbelievable.
Kemi is 21 on Betfair so roughly a 5% chance; about a 14% chance of making the final two. Not out of the question, depending how votes from Zahawi and probably soon-to-be eliminated Braverman are redistributed but not yet front-page news.
Charles Walker MP was saying earlier that the 1922 Committee might set another bar for the next round, somewhere between 40 and 50 votes. Does anyone know whether this has been put in place?
I've not seen anything and it is hard to see what difference the lower bar would make. The three lowest-scoring candidates left are Kemi 40, Tugendhat 37 and Suella Braverman on 32. It is hard to imagine any of them scoring less than 40 on Thursday without also being knocked out as the lowest candidate, given there are 43 votes to be redistributed from Hunt and Zahawi.
Uber's IP SHOULD be in the technology they use but it isn't, because they went about this the wrong way. What they should have done is licensed the technology to TfL and the taxi operators. They didn't do that.
It is just the same as all of these fast delivery companies, no unique idea. No long term strategy, burn through cash.
There's a reason the big players are not in this game in a big way, because it is dead end.
Uber's unit economics in mature markets are excellent.
Great. They can start paying social taxes then.
Uber is just a high tech minicab firm. In the old days, they'd call out on the radio "anyone available for a pick up near Fulham Broadway". Nowadays, it's Uber's systems that direct the taxis.
In most places, it's a duopoly between Uber and Lyft (with traditional taxi services a long way behind.)
Why should Uber/Lyft be treated any differently to a minicab firm? There is no obligation for any drivers to work for them on a given day and the drivers are responsible for their own vehicles. It is literally the very definition of self employed.
1. They were (are?) subsidised to such an extent they were (are?) anti-competitive
2. The technology (a brilliant invention) tends to monopoly (or duopoly).
3. I believe most of the drivers are effectively employed rather than self-employed by a fair adjudication.
So, I have you saying that Uber is an effective monopoly, while I have @CorrectHorseBattery telling me that it's going out of business and is going to have no customers soon...
I don't think you can both be right.
That’s because we are separate posters. We’re not working in alliance!
Uber was able to expand because it lobbied Governments privately to avoid regulations, it got there first and offered discounted rates to grow the customer base.
The problem is that was only supposed to be temporary, they were intending to transition to driverless cars as staffing costs were the main problem. That business failed spectacularly.
"it got there first and offered discounted rates to grow the customer base"
You mean, "it was willing to take a smaller cut than traditional minicab firms"?
It still does, by the way. If you get an Addison Lee and pay £20, the driver gets £6 or 7. If you get an Uber he gets £13-15. It's why Addison Lee has essentially disappeared, while Uber is ubiquitous.
What you are saying agrees with me, the cut they take means they will never be able to be profitable. And that is why they bet so big on driverless vehicles to eliminate it.
They as far as I could understand it, have actually increased the cut they take, which has meant many drivers have left and gone to Bolt who let them keep more of it. Indeed there is/was an Uber strike over this issue because of the cost of petrol/diesel not being reflected in the cut so drivers end up not being able to make any money at all.
I agree the technology is fantastic - but that is where the money should have been. What they have now is not unique in any way, is easily copyable and the customer base is not inclined to stay because of the rates.
It is like Netflix, because Netflix believed they could keep jacking up the prices and people would stay. It took a while but then people started to leave.
This is what is happening with Uber right now in London.
Uber is profitable.
Quick recap: Uber Technologies, Inc. develops and operates proprietary technology applications in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. On 31 December 2021, the US$64b market-cap company posted a loss of US$496m for its most recent financial year.
- Mobility (which is the traditional taxi business + scooters) - Delivery (which is mostly food) - Freight (which is their commercial delivery business)
Of these, Mobility is highly profitable ($618m EBITDA in 1Q), while the other two are marginal propositions. (Albeit the freight business is very young.)
Now, you can argue that Uber in total is not profitable - certainly when accounting for the losses they've made on some of their historic investments - it's simply not true to say that the core taxi business is not profitable. On the contrary, in mature markets, it's extremely profitable.
It all seems a bit nebulous. There is no evidence presented that links Smith to Rishi's campaign. The bigger question is why Smith "has a Downing Street pass and is on the Tory party payroll, tasked with attacking Labour, although his name is conspicuously absent from any official party literature or staffing lists."
Steve Baker says Penny Mordaunt is not a real Brexiter because she voted for May’s Brexit deal.
At which time of asking? First, second, or third? Boris famously voted at the last.
All. But so did Truss and Badenoch.
Only Braverman kept the “faith”!
I was interested to hear Theresa Villiers say that Rishi Sunak was committed to the new NI Protocol legislation as a lot of people seem to think he would drop it.
When the recession comes, these companies with fundamentally unstable and very uncertain business models are going to crash.
Invest in good companies, you have been warned.
Lots of "Tech" companies (I put that in air quotes) are massively overvalued. We have already seen it with for example WeWork, there will be plenty more. Too many have had silly valuation because they have said something or other about tech or ML or AI, when WeWork it was a office rental company, that was it. They weren't building Westworld's super bollox, I mean AI computer.
AI has become such a buzzword it means nothing. Actual AI has been an absolute catastrophic failure in terms of the consumer, the best Google has managed is the Google voice.
Uber has no USP, it's why Bolt has basically stolen their app.
Deliveroo has no USP, it's why - ironically - Uber has basically stolen their app.
Gorillaz has no USP, it's why FreshMarket or whatever it's called has basically stolen their app.
These companies will not and cannot survive, the cash is going to run out.
There's nothing unique about the London Stock Exchange or eBay, except that those are the places where there is liquidity. Anyone can create a YouTube, because video hosting is not that complicated.
Having actual users is a big deal. Uber has the customers, and it has the drivers. It is actually pretty profitable if you look at their core taxi business. And no-one can compete with them, because competing with them means spending a fortune to get users, who won't be on the platform unless there are drivers... and why would there be drivers when all the customers are on Uber.
Uber isn't going to have customers much longer as they keep jacking up the prices, because the discounted rates are not enough to become profitable.
Maybe they will make it in other markets but in London certainly, they are going down the toilet. And that is supposed to be a key market for them.
They can be credited with introducing technology to an industry that badly needed it - but they will not be around in twenty years time, I am almost certain of it.
They are headed the same way as Netflix. Down.
Good for you.
I didn't own their shares this morning, but you've convinced me to buy some.
I'll invest in companies I believe in, I would hope you would do the same.
I remember when people said Netflix would grow forever, that it had customer loyalty because it was Netflix. They were wrong then and they will be wrong again.
There's a fundamental difference between Netflix and Uber, though.
Netflix was dependent on renting content from Disney, etc., and then selling it at a mark up. Disney and co realised that there was more money to be made by creating their own Netflix. (As someone put it to me back in 2014: can Netflix become HBO faster than HBO becomes Netflix?)
I don't think that's true of Uber.
They have the liquidity. As @Gardenwalker posits, it's a pseudo-monopoly in many places. Yesterday when I landed at LAX, I got my phone out and ordered an Uber. Why? Because there is a guarantee of quality that comes with driver rating, and there is lots of liquidity (i.e. drivers).
Food delivery is more difficult: there's much more that can go wrong, because you're dependent on restaurants and drivers; and the restaurants themselves have more power relative to the transportation company. I don't think food delivery becomes a monopoly/duopoly, while I think it's pretty clear that minicab-esque services do.
The bus to the Uber pick up point is a shag though
Unless it is built on a solid foundation of attracting private sector investment and jobs, no other aspect of levelling up will ever succeed. Geographically, we need to recognise our economy has changed, and broaden the number of places that levelling up must help.
For a long time, government policy has been overly focussed on the inner cities.
But now our largest cities have been growing faster than the rest of the country. Levelling up is about Stoke and Bodmin as much as Birmingham, and Hartlepool as much as central Newcastle.
Rural and coastal areas can have the lowest earnings, lowest productivity, lowest school achievement and the most limited opportunities for young people. Levelling up has to be about helping these communities, not just the centres of our biggest cities.
If I become Prime Minister, I will build on the current levelling up agenda to deliver jobs and prosperity for the people of this country.
Even with Michael Gove on Team Kemi, levelling up remains just a slogan.
Unless it is built on a solid foundation of attracting private sector investment and jobs, no other aspect of levelling up will ever succeed. Geographically, we need to recognise our economy has changed, and broaden the number of places that levelling up must help.
For a long time, government policy has been overly focussed on the inner cities.
But now our largest cities have been growing faster than the rest of the country. Levelling up is about Stoke and Bodmin as much as Birmingham, and Hartlepool as much as central Newcastle.
Rural and coastal areas can have the lowest earnings, lowest productivity, lowest school achievement and the most limited opportunities for young people. Levelling up has to be about helping these communities, not just the centres of our biggest cities.
If I become Prime Minister, I will build on the current levelling up agenda to deliver jobs and prosperity for the people of this country.
Very rare for any politician to acknowledge rural communities. She is to be commended for that.
Almost as though there are lots of rural MP votes up for grabs.
Steve Baker says Penny Mordaunt is not a real Brexiter because she voted for May’s Brexit deal.
At which time of asking? First, second, or third? Boris famously voted at the last.
All. But so did Truss and Badenoch.
Only Braverman kept the “faith”!
I was interested to hear Theresa Villiers say that Rishi Sunak was committed to the new NI Protocol legislation as a lot of people seem to think he would drop it.
Because he's somehow transmogrified into a sinister remainer.
Boris's work to cut him down to size earlier this year did its work.
Unless it is built on a solid foundation of attracting private sector investment and jobs, no other aspect of levelling up will ever succeed. Geographically, we need to recognise our economy has changed, and broaden the number of places that levelling up must help.
For a long time, government policy has been overly focussed on the inner cities.
But now our largest cities have been growing faster than the rest of the country. Levelling up is about Stoke and Bodmin as much as Birmingham, and Hartlepool as much as central Newcastle.
Rural and coastal areas can have the lowest earnings, lowest productivity, lowest school achievement and the most limited opportunities for young people. Levelling up has to be about helping these communities, not just the centres of our biggest cities.
If I become Prime Minister, I will build on the current levelling up agenda to deliver jobs and prosperity for the people of this country.
Almost as though there were lots of rural MP votes up for grabs.
Very rare for any politician to acknowledge rural communities. She is to be commended for that.
Almost as though there are lots of rural MP votes up for grabs.
Charles Walker MP was saying earlier that the 1922 Committee might set another bar for the next round, somewhere between 40 and 50 votes. Does anyone know whether this has been put in place?
'Might? Shouldn't they have sorted all this out before they started?
I agree, but they always seem to make it up on the hoof.
That allows for all sorts of exciting possibilities. Next round: the assault course. Then a yard of ale contest, then weeding the gardens of the 1922 Committee.
They'll end up turning into the Krypton Factor.
Which means Aaron Bell will be favourite to be Prime Minister.
Netflix has secured a deal with Microsoft to introduce advertising breaks for its streaming service as it scrambles to offset a fall in subscribers by offering a cheaper service for customers.
The streaming giant has chosen Microsoft to be its global technology and sales partner and will provide ads through its platform, its chief operating officer Greg Peters said on Wednesday.
Another massive hole in Nadine Dorries argument that BBC could be a subscription service like Netflix.
a) Netflix basic subs model under assault post-pandemic
b) Ads on BBC. Really? Pretty sure the Antiques roadshow loving tory members of Home Counties don't want any interruptions to sell them Equity Release.
The BBC was going to be subscription, back when TV started. It only had the license fee because encryption technology wasn’t up to the job. See Kahn “The Codebreakers” - a brilliant history of code breaking.
Netflix has the problem that they were selling other peoples content. Said people are now selling direct - see Disney. The BBC has lots of content.
Within a decade or two, we will be switching off broadcast TV. It will all be online. The young only use iPlayer when they watch BBC now.
The BBC stupidly cling to the license fee far too long - they should have got the rights to various programs sorted and gone worldwide. There are enough people in the USA who want to watch the BBC, alone to pay for the BBC several times over.
Think on that as a pitch - the BBC completely independent of government funding, free to people in the U.K, paid for by foreigners….
Comments
Then let's see how faithful the Uber fanbase is
In truth, the legitimate issues faced by Bodmin are not at all comparable to the issues around Birmingham, and it does the country no favours to pretend otherwise.
Only Braverman kept the “faith”!
Uber is three businesses:
- Mobility (which is the traditional taxi business + scooters)
- Delivery (which is mostly food)
- Freight (which is their commercial delivery business)
Of these, Mobility is highly profitable ($618m EBITDA in 1Q), while the other two are marginal propositions. (Albeit the freight business is very young.)
Now, you can argue that Uber in total is not profitable - certainly when accounting for the losses they've made on some of their historic investments - it's simply not true to say that the core taxi business is not profitable. On the contrary, in mature markets, it's extremely profitable.
Boris's work to cut him down to size earlier this year did its work. Almost as though there are lots of rural MP votes up for grabs.
Which means Aaron Bell will be favourite to be Prime Minister.
I'm okay with this.
Netflix has the problem that they were selling other peoples content. Said people are now selling direct - see Disney. The BBC has lots of content.
Within a decade or two, we will be switching off broadcast TV. It will all be online. The young only use iPlayer when they watch BBC now.
The BBC stupidly cling to the license fee far too long - they should have got the rights to various programs sorted and gone worldwide. There are enough people in the USA who want to watch the BBC, alone to pay for the BBC several times over.
Think on that as a pitch - the BBC completely independent of government funding, free to people in the U.K, paid for by foreigners….