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Popular ride-sharing app Uber shared it’s fourth-quarter financial reports and it showed the company loss jumped 61 percent in 2017.
Under the leadership of its former CEO Travis Kalanick, Uber was embroiled in controversy and scandal which could easily be used as a reason to point to the company losing $4.6 billion in 2017 compared to $2,8 billion in 2016 according to reports. Just recently the ride-sharing company settled with Waymo for stealing company trade secrets and as part of the agreement awarded the company $244 million in stock.
Definitely doesn’t sound like it was worth the trouble at all. Uber also ended the year with about $6 billion in cash which is 13 percent low from 2016.
It’s not all dire news for the company though, new CEO Dara Khosrowshadi is looking to get the company back on the right track. The fourth-quarter was his first full period since taking over. In that time the company managed to narrow its loss to $1.1 billion from $1.6 billion in the third quarter. Uber also reported a revenue climb of $11.1 billion up from $9 billion a 14 percent increase.
Khosrowshadi’s optimism in the company remains high despite the recent negative reports. Here is what he said while speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco:
“We can turn the knobs to get this business even on a full basis profitable, but you would sacrifice growth and sacrifice innovation. We deserve to be and we should be a brand that is beloved as an Amazon or a Google.”
He even hopes that one day Uber can help eliminate traffic altogether by convincing people to stop buying cars completely. Uber didn’t have to share any of this information publicly, this shows the company is trying to change for the better. We shall see what the future holds for the company and their new CEO.
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