There are two stories coming out of Uber’s Q2 earnings report today. The first is the straight ahead numbers: The company did $2.18 billion in revenue for the quarter, which was down 29 percent year-over-year, but beat analyst expectations. Uber’s net losses were $1.8 billion, narrower than the $2.94 billion in Q1.
Of course, much of this was due to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the company’s mobility business. Uber’s mobility division had gross bookings of $3.046 billion for the quarter, which was a decline of 73 percent year-over-year. With people on lockdown, they had no need to hail a ride.
But while the coronavirus kept people from catching an Uber across town, it also pushed them to ordering more food delivery while they stayed home, which leads us to the other story.
Gross bookings for Uber’s delivery business (Uber Eats) hit $6.96 billion in Q2, which was up 113 percent year-over-year and up 54 percent over Q1 2020. That’s a lot of french fries delivered to people’s front doors.
In addition to getting a pandemic push, Uber Eats also streamlined some of its costs in Q2. The company ceased Uber Eats operations in eight different markets around the world where it wasn’t in a leading position.
In the Q2 earnings release, Uber also said that it now has more than 500,000 partnered restaurants on the platform, a 50 percent jump year-over-year.
With Q2 in the books, it’s time to look ahead to Q3 which will include the $2.65 billion all-stock purchase of rival food delivery service, Postmates, as well as the expansion into grocery delivery here in the U.S.
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