Uber shares pop as CEO touts 'best week ever'

Uber shares climbed 5% Tuesday after the company's chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, revealed that the company had its "best week ever" last week in terms of overall gross bookings, despite growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus' omicron variant.

Gross booking refers to the combined total revenue for Uber's ride-sharing and delivery businesses. Khosrowshahi emphasized that Uber's delivery business has grown three-and-a-half times larger since the company's IPO in 2019. In addition, he touted a strong recovery for the mobility segment over the last few weeks. 

"Our overall mobility business continues to get closer to pre-pandemic levels," he told UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley during a fireside chat on Tuesday. "We’re starting to inch up to call it like the 90% mark, we’re not quite there. Last week was our best week, you know, post-pandemic."

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In the third quarter of 2021, Uber reported that gross bookings reached an all-time high of $23.1 billion, up 57% year over year. Mobility gross bookings revenue for the quarter was $9.9 billion, up 67% year over year, while delivery gross bookings revenue was $12.8 billion, up 50% on an annual basis. Trips during the quarter grew 39% year over year to 1.64 billion, or nearly 18 million trips per day on average.

Uber is anticipating fourth-quarter gross bookings revenue in the range of $25 billion to $26 billion and adjusted EBITDA between $25 million and $75 million. According to Khosrowshahi, Uber is on track to reach the high end of the adjusted EBITDA forecast.

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In addition to business bouncing back, the executive disclosed that Uber is looking to sell its stakes in companies that it believes do not hold strategic value. He emphasized that many of the companies Uber holds stakes in have recently gone public and are still subject to a "lock-up period." 

Didi was cited a specific example due to the company being a competitor and China being "a pretty difficult environment with very little transparency," according to Khosrowshahi. Though Uber is in no rush to sell the shares, Khosorowshahi said the company will look to monetize the stakes "smartly" over a period of time.