In this post, I’ll share my notes on Uber Q3 FY2021 earnings and the business in general.
The last quarter saw Uber’s business continue to recover from the recent challenges, including driver shortages and lockdowns in various parts of the world. The number of Monthly Active Platform Consumers (MAPC) reached 109 million, an increase of 40% year over year. This is the highest number that Uber has seen in the last 12 months. The number of trips rose 39% as the average monthly trips per consumer was flat at 5 each. As usage increased, the company saw Gross Bookings (GB) and Revenue grow by 57% and 72% respectively (Figure 1). Adjusted EBITA, which Uber uses to measure profitability, was positive for the first time.
Specific segments (Mobility, Delivery and Freight) showed great progress in both GB and Revenue. Mobility led the way in GB growth at 67%, followed by Delivery at 50%, mainly because of the law of big numbers. In revenue growth, Mobility trailed Delivery (62% and 97% respectively), because the latter managed to raise its take rate by 410 basis points (Figure 2) while the former’s take rate took a modest hit. As the revenue continued to climb and operational optimization kicked in, Uber’s Delivery was inches away from profitability on Adjusted EBITA basis.
There is an argument to be made that Covid-19 created a golden opportunity for Uber to transform itself. The pandemic impacted its Mobility segment to great extent as lockdowns were imposed and consumers stayed at home. Not only did the company persevered, but it also pivoted successfully to grow its Delivery service. Since December 2020, the company’s total GB every month already exceeded that of February 2020. The key was in how Uber did it. While Mobility’s GB still hasn’t recovered to the pre-Covid level, Delivery has grown leaps and bounds by several folds (Figure 3). Furthermore, the two segments start to complement and support each other as one becomes a key acquisition tool for the other. Here is what Dara, the CEO, had to say on the earnings call:
So about 50% of, for example, U.S. and U.K.gross bookings come from cross-platform users. That number is closer to 45% globally and generally increasing. In the U.S. now, mobility continues to be a very significant customer acquisition tool for Eats. So now 1/4 of U.S.first-time eaters are coming from our Ride’s business, which is pretty extraordinary. For perspective, that’s more new users than we get from Google, Apple, Facebook, Instagram from all of these paid entities combined.So it’s free. We have tested that because consumers actually like this super asset that we’re building and the numbers are significant and increasing. And then on the other side, what’s interesting is that 20% of U.S. mobility first trips are coming from eaters. So now that we have a very, very big delivery business, we’re able to now cross platform into whether it’s offers or on the app or off app, we’re able to promote into our Mobility business. That number for the U.K., for example, is 40%. I’ll repeat it. 40% of U.K. first trip mobility users actually came from Eats — were Eats users, which is pretty extraordinary.
Source: Uber Q3 FY2021 Earnings Call
This synergy and ability to cross-sell is a competitive advantage over other Delivery rivals like DoorDash or Mobility nemesis (Lyft). None have this capability, especially on a global scale, like Uber does. From a consumer perspective, the extra utilities that Uber offers create a compelling reason to be a member and use the Uber app more often. According to the management team, there are 6 million members globally who already make up 1/5 of the total GB. On average on the Eat side, members’ basket size is 10% bigger than that of non-members. In Taiwan, Eat members made up more than 50% of the market’s GB and placed 3x more orders than non-members.
The increased utilization is also reflected on the driver side. A few months ago, in an article on the acquisition of Postmates and Drizly, I wrote: “Drivers have limited resources in their vehicles and time, as even the most dedicated drivers can’t drive for more than 24 hours a day. Nobody wants to drive around needlessly all day without getting paid while having to pay for vehicle expenses and gas. As a result, the more business opportunity Uber can bring to drivers, helping them better leverage their time and resources, the more drivers will sign up. When it comes to making more trips and money, do drivers care if it’s a parcel or a person that needs transporting?”. The sentiment was confirmed yesterday by Dara on the earnings call:
On the driver side, one thing that’s pretty cool is that about 1/3 of our new driver sign-ups now are driving both people and food, so to speak. And that is a higher number than our overall number. So about 25% of our drivers in the U.S. drive both people and food. That number was in the teens pre-pandemic.So it’s going up from the teens to 25% overall. And new drivers, 1/3 of them are electing to do both. So that, again, is like the iteration of our product getting better and better in terms of kind of pushing both services or offering both services, both on the demand and supply side.
So I think we’re going to see more earners on our platform for years and years to come. And we are finally getting the right muscle in terms of promoting cross-platform usage, which is going to lead to higher utilization on our platform in terms of time of day and in terms of driver utilization, structurally, it will be an advantage over the other players. So we want to be that platform that is kind of the one-stop shop for earners that they keep coming back to for a long period of time.
Source: Uber Q3 FY2021 Earnings Call
The investment in drivers that Uber made earlier in the year, plus the recovery from Covid and the increased driver utilization, helped the company tackle the driver supply issue. Compared to January 2021, Uber has seen 75% more active drivers in Q3. The wait time dropped from 7. 5 min on average in the U.S in March 2021 down to 4.5 min in October 2021.
In addition to the true ride-hailing and food delivery services that people come to know Uber for, there are a few other developments that are very promising and potentially beneficial to Uber. First is advertising. Having a marketplace (app) that is used by millions of users enables the company to monetize that traffic. Merchants wishing to broadcast their name and generate more business ought to pay advertising dollars to Uber. From Uber side, advertising revenue which Uber reported to amount to $100 million on an annualized basis in Q3 2021 and feature 140k merchants is high margin that allows the company to “fund” other emerging verticals. Which brings me to non-food deliveries. The new verticals make up about 6-7% of Delivery’s total GB and are expected to reach double digits next year. The investments that Uber has made to scale these verticals actually dragged down the profitability of the whole Delivery segment as the core verticals are now already in the black.
Additionally, the company is expanding alcohol delivery to more states in the U.S after the acquisition of Drizly. Drizly has a business model that is already profitable. It acts as a marketplace to connect merchants and consumers, but leaves the delivery duty to merchants. That way, Drizly can simply earn revenue from monthly subscriptions and a small fee every order without having to deal with drivers and all the expenses that come with delivery. Other ventures include rapid delivery, dark grocery (tiny warehouses that hold a limited selection of grocery to facilitate rapid delivery) and Baby + Kids vertical.
One stripe that people have against Uber is the tendency to burn money every quarter. The criticism is legit as that’s been the company’s model. This quarter saw net loss balloon to $2.4 billion, $2 billion of which came from a “net headwind (pre-tax) from revaluation of Uber’s equity investments in Q3 2021”. According to Uber’s CFO – Nelson Chai, the write-down resulted mainly from the loss of value of Uber’s stakes in DidiChung and this fluctuation can continue from one quarter to the next. I have quite mixed feelings about this issue. While I appreciate that Uber has valuable assets such as this equity, the fluctuation and complication don’t provide the simplicity and certainty to investors.
Lastly, Uber revamped its pricing tiers for merchants. The new pricing system mirrors very well what DoorDash offers with two distinct differences. One is that while DoorDash includes in its take rates the credit card processing fees, it’s unclear if Uber does the same. This can be an important point as 2.5% in credit card fees can mean the world to merchants. The other difference is that Uber guarantees 5 more orders every month with its Premier tier than DoorDash’s highest tier. As these table stakes are level-set, the difference between these two impressive companies will come down to: who executes better, who can bring more business & drivers to merchants?
Overall, this, to me, is a good quarter for Uber. The company took steps to address the driver supply issue and they worked. There is a great synergy between Delivery and Mobility that seems to go from strength to strength over time. Delivery doesn’t seem to show signs of slowing down and is actually profitable at the core while still in the red with the new verticals. Once Mobility gets back to the pre-Covid level and the new investments become more mature, the outlook will be even brighter for this company.
Disclosure: I have a position on Uber.
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Minh Quang Duong 