Uber with reverse gear | Losses of 5230 mi …

during second quarter of 2019 Uber lost $ 5230 million. On this loss, 3900 million euros are part of the cost of its IPO in May, but even if only the rest of the bankruptcy is taken into account, the result is appalling. This platform that carries forward a "Shock Entrepreneurship", had only two quarters with gains in its history, the last of a first quarter of 2018 already far.

Uber This is a testimony of what the economist Nick Srnicek calls "austere platforms", which stand as intermediaries in pre-existing market niches, but without practically investing in its own infrastructure: This allows you to grow without buying cars or hire drivers, but also servers, which you rent to third parties according to your needs.

With that hyperflexible structure You can grow your business quickly and without significant investment. On the other hand, when he considers it a technological platform, he refuses to pay the costs of a transport company and is in fact subsidized with taxes from citizens who are destined to the company. Asphalt, lighting, police or, in the event of an accident, health care. public that receives drivers or pbadengers. The enormous financial resources provided by venture capital invest a lot in advertising, user-friendly applications and low rates that seduce pbadengers and bend competitors.

In summary, the goal is to grow up first, win later. However, costs continue to rise and no future earnings are posted. On the one hand, since the arrival of the new general manager, Dara Khosrowshahi, the goal is to reduce the number of conflicts in the world by providing better provisions to comply at least with a part of the regulations of each city.

The problem is that compliance with the law entails certain costs, such as the payment of the minimum wage to drivers in New York since February, despite the refusal to consider their "partners" as employees. This kind of resignation against laws that regulate transportation impacts your balance sheets, but also investors from other austere platforms such as Rappi, Airbnb or Glovo who see in their big brother the strategy to follow.

numbers

According to the second quarter report, Uber has received $ 15,756 million in travel (31% more than a year ago) from nearly 100 million monthly active users worldwide.. Of this total, the platform has pocketed $ 3166 million, or 20%, which still need to act as an intermediary. While the number of trips has increased by 30%, billing has only increased by 14, which is a bad sign for investors more and more worried. Worse, even without counting the costs engendered by the IPO, Uber lost about $ 1,300 million, nearly double that of the previous year.

Despite everything and as it is de rigueur, the CEO of the company was satisfied by annual growth of 35% in the number of tripsalthough he can not hide that this does not translate into higher profits or even lower losses. In this context, it is understood that, recently, society I asked the Argentine drivers to pay at least part of the "accumulated debt": Due to the blockage of the credit card payment that the company suffers in Argentina due to a court order, it has great difficulty in retaining its percentage per trip. This type of supposedly temporary but unresolved losses affects the expectations of today's largest austere platform. In fact, after the income statement, The Uber share has fallen 12%, reaching 25% total since its exit from the stock market. In a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, the lack of expectations makes the bubble begin to lose a force that, until now, seduced investors by promising them to recover everything once the market won and the income generated. The corners of the planet.

Austere platforms represent the ideal of work flexibility: the link is made exclusively via an application and when a dismissal was necessary and that the compensation now reaches a block. But even its biggest promise, that of generating work, is controversial: it is true that its practical aspect and its best prices can seduce the pbadengers who do not perceive hidden costs subsidized locally, but most probably, if Uber does not not exist, the trips would be made by public transport, more efficient, or by a taxi that pays the corresponding taxes. The biggest change is that some of the money that was previously kept in the neighborhood, the city or the country, is now invisible through optical fiber to speculative capitals from other parts of the world.