Uber Technologies Inc. reported a $5.2 billion loss for the second quarter on Thursday as growth in its core ride-hailing business slowed, sending its shares down in after-hours trading.
The latest red ink, up from a loss of $878 million a year earlier, reflected $3.9 billion of stock-based compensation expenses related to its IPO earlier this year. The adjusted loss -- a more commonly used metric for ride-hailing companies, which excludes interest, tax and other expenses -- more than doubled to $656 million but wasn’t as large as the $979.1 million average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Uber shares fell 5.5 percent to $40.61 in after-hours trading Thursday.
Second-quarter revenue growth slowed to 14 percent, and at the company's core business, ride-hailing, revenue grew only 2 percent to $2.3 billion.Total revenue of $3.17 billion fell short of the average analyst estimate of $3.36 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Gross bookings, a measure of total value of car rides, scooter and bicycle trips, food deliveries and other services before payments to drivers, restaurants and other expenses, rose 31 percent from a year earlier to $15.76 billion.
At the same time, Uber is keeping less money per car ride. The amount passengers spent on trips rose 20 percent while the amount Uber kept after paying drivers increased just 4 percent.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an earnings call with media the competitive environment is starting to rationalize and it has been "progressively improving" since the first quarter.
Lyft on Wednesday said pricing had become "more rational", meaning the company should spend less on promotions and incentives to win market share. It raised its revenue outlook on Wednesday.
Both companies have historically relied on subsidization to attract riders and have been spending heavily to expand services into areas such as self-driving technology for Lyft and food delivery for Uber.
Uber's costs rose 147 percent to $8.65 billion in the quarter, including a sharp rise in spending for r&d.
"While we will continue to invest aggressively in growth, we also want it to be healthy growth, and this quarter we made good progress in that direction," CFO Nelson Chai said in a statement.
The company, which has not yet made clear whether it will make a profit, is trying to convince investors that growth will come not only from its ride services, but also from other logistics and food delivery services. Uber Eats revenue rose 72 percent to $595 million in the second quarter.
Uber said its monthly active users rose to 99 million globally, from 93 million at the end of the first quarter and 76 million a year earlier.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
