(New York) Chauffeur-driven vehicle reservation and meal delivery platform Uber posted a profit in the second quarter, a surprise for the market which was expecting a loss.
If the group of San Francisco (California), on the other hand, recorded a turnover lower than anticipated, it reported more ambitious forecasts than expected for the third quarter.
“Everything fell into place as planned this quarter,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC.
“We expect to be profitable every quarter from now on,” he added. Uber has never finished an accounting year in the green since its IPO in May 2019.
Flat, almost all of the profit recorded in the second quarter is due to an accounting effect unrelated to the activity of the platform.
Uber thus benefited from the appreciation in the value of its stakes in the flying taxi start-up Joby, the young company dedicated to autonomous driving Aurora and the Asian ride-hailing platform Grab.
These elements allowed the group to record a net profit of 394 million dollars, against a loss of 713 million for the same period last year.
However, even excluding these exceptional accounting effects, Uber remains slightly profitable, while analysts expected a small loss.
The turnover reached 9.2 billion dollars, less than the 9.3 billion announced by analysts.
The market did not seem to hold it against the group for this failure, preferring to focus on Uber’s forecast for the third quarter, deemed higher than expected, both for the volume of activity and for profitability.
In electronic trading prior to the opening of Wall Street, the stock gained more than 2%.
“Dara (Khosrowshahi) is in the process of achieving a historic turnaround,” commented analysts at Wedbush Securities, who particularly praised the company’s financial discipline.
