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Uber reports first quarterly profit as rides recover

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Uber Technologies Inc on Thursday reported its first profitable quarter on an adjusted basis since it launched more than a decade ago with its two most important segments, ride-hailing and restaurant delivery, both turning the corner.

Uber said consumers were travelling in greater numbers and drivers had returned to its platform in the third quarter, suggesting its massive payments to incentivize drivers had paid off.

The California-based company reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure that excludes one-time costs, primarily stock-based compensation, of $8m for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compared to a loss on the same basis of $625m a year ago.

But Uber posted a growing net loss of $2.4bn, driven primarily by a drop in value of its holding in Chinese ride service Didi and stock-based compensation. Total revenue grew 72 per cent to $4.8bn, above an average analyst estimate of $4.4bn, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

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Revenue at its mobility unit, which includes its rides business, grew 62 per cent to $2.2bn from last year. Revenue was up 36 per cent on a quarterly basis and unit margins returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement said this year’s Halloween weekend surpassed 2019 levels, suggesting Americans were eager to go out.

US airport trips, among the most profitable routes in the industry, increased in recent weeks and were up 20 per cent from the beginning of September, while business trips increased 60 per cent, Uber said. Uber Chief Financial Officer Nelson Chai in a statement said the company’s core restaurant delivery business was profitable for the first time on an adjusted EBITDA basis in the third quarter.

Uber’s monthly active driver and courier base in the US has grown by nearly 640,000 since January, but the company did not provide data on how driver numbers compared to pre-pandemic levels.

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Uber’s delivery unit, largely made up of the company’s Eats business, continued its success streak, but gross bookings were largely unchanged from the second quarter.

Delivery, which includes restaurant and store deliveries, overall reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $12m, bringing the unit close to breakeven.

Delivery emerged as Uber’s pandemic backbone. Steady delivery bookings signal the rebound in rides has not come at the expense of food delivery, with consumers sticking to the service even as the economy reopens.

Uber’s earnings follow stellar results by smaller US rival Lyft Inc, which on Tuesday reported its second consecutive quarterly adjusted profit and outlined its path to sustained profitability.

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Cable cuts: Operators working to restore connectivity, says NCC

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Cable cuts: Operators working to restore connectivity, says NCC

The Nigeria Communications Commission has confirmed that several African internet service providers faced outages due to submarine cable cuts, with cable operators actively engaged in efforts to restore connectivity.

The telecom regulator made this disclosure in a statement signed by the Director, Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, on Thursday.

The NCC identified affected operators to include West African Cable System and African Coast to Europe, along with SAT3 and MainOne, which experienced downtime.

The regulator attributed the disruptions to incidents in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, resulting in subsequent disruptions in Portugal.

The commission noted similar challenges along other undersea cable routes, such as Seacom, Europe India Gateway, and Asia-Africa-Europe 1, which also experienced cuts.

The regulator stated, ” Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway, and Asia-Africa-Europe 1, were said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in the degradation of services across these routes.”

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Many subscribers on Thursday expressed frustrations on social media platforms, citing difficulties in making phone calls and accessing online services.

Despite the setbacks, the NCC assured the public that cable operators have initiated repair efforts, with services gradually being restored.

The commission stated, “Operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are gradually being restored. They have promised to work around the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time.

“It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporations and consumers on these services.”
Earlier, MTN Nigeria, the leading telecommunications provider in the country, acknowledged the situation and appealed to its subscribers.

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The company also assured them that it is making efforts to resolve the issue and restore services as quickly as possible.
A few weeks ago, a similar issue occurred where major operators across the country, including MTN, Airtel, and 9mobile, grappled with a widespread network connection crisis.

The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, told The PUNCH that the connectivity issue was due to significant fibre cuts made by road contractors employed by the Federal Government.

The ALTON chairman said, “There have been significant fibre cuts across the country, and this has impacted connectivity today, but efforts are being made by affected telecom operators to rectify this situation.”

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IHS grants Airtel five-year tenancy

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IHS grants Airtel five-year tenancy

IHS Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria have sealed a deal that positions the third-largest telecom operator in Nigeria to acquire 3,950 tenancies over the next five years.

The majority of those acquisitions are anticipated in 2024 and 2025, with an extension until 2031 for existing tenancies covering approximately 6,000 sites.

According to a statement from the firms, the agreement comprises 2,500 collocations, 5G amendments, and the creation of built-to-suit sites owned and operated by IHS Nigeria.

They noted that the deal simply meant Airtel would be installing and operating its network equipment in locations owned by IHS.

Instead of constructing and maintaining its infrastructure, Airtel is opting to leverage IHS’s established facilities for five years.

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The Chairman of IHS Towers, Sam Darwish, said, “The expansion and renewal of our relationship with Airtel Nigeria is a testament to our continued commitment to serving our customers and the connectivity demands of Africa.

“Airtel Nigeria, as well as Airtel Africa, whom we serve in other markets in Africa, has been a long-term partner of IHS, and I am delighted that we continue to strengthen our collaboration to help facilitate mobile connectivity in our largest market, supporting our customers in rolling out new sites throughout Nigeria.”

A year ago, Airtel Africa paid $316.7m for the 5G spectrum it won in December 2022 and an additional 4G spectrum.

The telecom operator said the additional spectrum would boost its investments in network expansion for both mobile data and fixed wireless home broadband capability, including 5G rollout.

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The Chairman of Airtel, Sunil Mittal, said the company was willing to invest $700m in the country in the next two years as it rolls out the 5G network.

“To roll and experience the 5G and more fibre into the ground and data centres will require over $700m in order to achieve that, so, $400m is what we generally invest every year, but with 5G the investment is only going to go up for the next two or three years before it comes back to what it used to be,” Mittal added.

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Gemini AI tool will solve complex tasks, says Google CEO

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Gemini AI tool will solve complex tasks, says Google CEO

Google said its advanced Gemini artificial intelligence tool was designed to tackle and solve highly complex tasks such as reasoning and coding.

The search engine disclosed this in a statement during the rebranding of its former artificial intelligence Bard to Gemini.

Gemini comes in two versions the free and premium (Gemini Advanced)

Gemini is the largest and most capable AI model available to users in over 40 languages (free version) and more than 230 countries and territories.

The Chief Executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, said, “In December, we took a significant step on our journey to make AI more helpful for everyone with the start of the Gemini era, setting a new state of the art across a wide range of text, image, audio, and video benchmarks.”

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Google said the advanced model is more proficient at performing highly complex tasks, such as coding, logical reasoning, responding to nuanced instructions, and collaborating on creative projects.

Google explained that some of the capabilities will include getting instructions on fixing a tyre based on a photo, generating a custom image for their dinner party invitation or asking for help writing a difficult text message.

“It’s an important first step in building a true AI assistant, one that is conversational, multimodal and helpful,” Google stated.

Google said Gemini Advanced is going for $14 per month.

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It added that subscribers will get the first two months of trial free of charge and 2TB of storage space, among other benefits.

Gemini Advanced is available in only English but the American multinational assured that it will add more languages as it progresses.

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