Category: Consumer Tech

Ride-share earnings this week proved that if you lower the bar to the ground, any earnings performance can leap over it. Both companies reported staggering losses that were delivered with positive PR spins. 

Lyft reported “record second quarter results” while losing roughly the same amount of money as previous years. Uber had an epic $5 billion loss that is closer to $1.3 billion adjusted. The second number only looks acceptable in the parallel universe where a $65 billion market cap company can report any losses at all, let alone $4 billion per year. 

Likewise, Lyft looks digestible compared to its counterpart at $850M in losses, until you realize these numbers haven’t improved since 2016 when the company reported negative net losses of $692M and net losses of $708M in 2017. There is an improvement from 2018, but again, this depends on how you spin it. To me, it’s cut and dry – Investable companies should have fewer losses as they grow revenue. There may be quarters where a company moves backwards, maybe due to capex or another legitimate reason, but the revenue growth in ridesharing creates losses due to subsidizing, and this is a holistic problem that is not going away. 

The market found it encouraging that Lyft was expected to lose $1.1B but has revised this to $850M for 2019. Profit margins are negative 23%versus negative 37.7%. The price was adjusted for the $200M improvement, which during after-hours resulted in a 11% spike. The spike soon settled when Lyft announced they are moving up the lock-up period from late September to August 19th. 

We see evidence of the holistic problem where Lyft’s losses will marginally improve this year compared to last year. There is no evidence, however, that this is sustainable. If Lyft needs to support R&D on autonomous driving, for instance, then the margins will be deep in the red once again. An important metric to watch is the EBIT margin of -77% compared to -61% a year ago.

Uber’s Q2 resultsare more straight forward to analyze. Adjusted EBITDA was negative 292M in the year-ago period compared to negative 656M in the current period for an increase of 125%. Keep in mind, Uber Eats and Uber Freight help offset the losses. 

As I stated in MarketWatch, I’m not a fan of the price war narrative. Increases in revenue per users is irrelevant if the losses are also accelerating or stagnant. This means the subsidization of rides continues to drive demand, and if both companies raise prices, they will also have more losses. The end of a price war sounds like a PR spin to me and we see no evidence in the financials that this will do anything for profitability.

There are also many other unknowns in how demand will react to higher priced supply. Gross bookings may decrease as people decide to drive to a destination, park at the airport for $8 per day, or hire a regular taxi who is already waiting outside many venues. Also, Uber may pull ahead of Lyft if prices go up as the service has more drivers readily available and is a larger brand. 

I’ve written extensively about these companies and expressed why my readers should steer clear ahead of the IPOs during the exuberant market of April 2019. I highly recommend anyone who wants to invest in the ride-sharing story to consider the liquidity the lock-up expirations will create with more shares flooding the market.  

I won’t repeat everything here, but below are a few bullet points from my previous analysis published March 14th, 2019 – one month before Lyft went public. I’ve also included links to my previous analysis on Uber – both before and after the company went public.

• Lyft and Uber pay incentives to acquire and retain users. In gaming, a company might spend $8 to acquire a user with a lifetime value of $15 per user for a profit of $7. The problem with ride-sharing apps is that the incentives offered do not cover the costs of the ride, and that is one reason we see strong sales growth mired by substantial net losses.
• Reuters has some historic information on this dated back to 2015, when Uber passengers paid only 41 percent of the actual cost of their trips. At the time, Reuters reported that this creates an “artificial signal about the size of the market” with Uber releasing limited financial data that showed losses of $708 million per quarter.
• Lyft and Uber are mobile applications, but the business model is more of a large-cap human resources department with many variables around wages, and potentially regulations due to independent contractor classifications. (There was a recent $20 million settlement due to the misclassification of drivers in California).
• A paramount risk to both Uber and Lyft is total addressable market. Room for geographic expansion is limited beyond the United States, other than a few outlier countries like Saudi Arabia. Of course, the underlying issue with TAM is a lack of intellectual property with an easy-to-duplicate mobile application that leverages common app features such as GPS location and SMS/voice. For a list of competitors, reference “Lyft: Risky Valuation and No Intellectual Property”

My premium subscribers received a 12-page report on Roku And TTD prior to earnings, Snap prior to earnings and tech trade war plays to hedge their portfolios. Premium researchPremium research members receive updated recommendations and entry/exit scenarios on tech stocks. Learn more hereLearn more here. 

For additional information on Uber: 

Uber IPO: Record-Breaking for All the Wrong ReasonsUber Stock Had Disappointing Q1 Earnings: So Why Did the Price Go Up?

Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is blaming timing and the trade war for the stock’s poor performance in its public market debut rather than focusing on the company’s unprofitability. When Uber filed to go public, the S-1 filing showed a massive operating loss of $3 billion per year. The most recent earnings report on May 30th showed the losses are getting worse at $1 billion per quarter for the “deeply unprofitable” company. Revenue is slowing down with growth of 20 percent to $3.1 billion in the most recent quarter compared to 25 percent revenue in the year-prior quarter. This was Uber’s slowest growth since it began disclosing results in 2017.

Meanwhile, Uber stock has received a unanimous buy rating from financial analysts and many positive press headlines. This analysis will look closer as to why the current stock price does not reflect the clear evidence of diminished value as of the Q1 earnings report.

Uber Stock: Prospectus and S-1 Filing

If you’ve read my previous analysis on Uber’s IPO and Lyft’s IPO, then you can skip this section on the prospectus and S-1 filing. Notably, I provided accurate predictions on both of these public offerings before the market knew how the companies would perform – and I was very clear on the risks around these two stocks prior to Lyft dropping 20% from its IPO price and Uber stock becoming the worst IPO performance in history.

My newsletter subscribers get this information first. Sign up My newsletter subscribers get this information first. Sign up here.

In years prior, Uber’s prospectus points towards “an accumulated deficit of $7.8 billion” in the years ending December 31, 2017 and 2018. In 2017, Uber posted $4 billion in operating loss and negative $2.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA with losses of about $3 billion in 2018. This upcoming year of 2019, Uber is on track to reverse backwards on operating losses to the $4 billion mark with no improvement in profitability despite demanding a large cap valuation.

Notably, for anyone glancing over the prospectus, Uber sold some operations in Russia and Asia, which provided one-time income, and caused the company to post $1 billion in net income. This is why net income should be ignored when looking at the financials as it does not reflect the operating income or adjusted EBITDA.

Uber’s Core Platform Contribution Margin also worsened, dropping from negative 3% in Q4 2018 to negative 4.5% in Q1 2019 (most recent quarter not shown on the graph below).

Uber states that the reason the Core Platform Contribution Margin goes through periods of decline is due to competition in ridesharing. As my previous analysis pointed out, Uber has to subsidize rides in order to drive demand. This causes artificial supply and is the primary risk for investors.

Uber Eats is mentioned often in earnings reports and in the press. To be clear, Uber Eats only contributed $165 million in adjusted net revenue in Q4 2018 compared to ride sharing at $2.3 billion in adjusted net revenue; which again, the ridesharing is what places the profitability in question.

Evidence That Uber Stock Price is Too High

The primary risk of the ride-sharing business cannot be offset by new ventures, although the company has attempted to offset these losses by lumping users from Uber Eats and Uber Freight into a “platform.” These native apps are not a platform; this is a loophole to hide the numbers on ride-sharing as Uber Eats likely has a healthy user base, totaling $7 billion in sales annually.

Uber and Lyft subsidize rides which is why revenue grows and losses accelerate. The more business these companies do, the more money they lose. We do not know the true cost of ride-sharing as customers are not paying fair market value, and instead venture capital dollars are providing a cheaper ride than what supply and demand dictates. This is essential to understanding the metrics pictured below.

Mobile applications typically break down a few key metrics for investors to analyze. Uber does not offer monthly active users or daily active users. The company focuses on gross bookings, which is at a staggering $50 billion gross bookings annually, although this does not address why there are also staggering losses.

Data can easily be presented in favorable terms, and therefore, more than one source is recommended when drawing conclusions. In February, Adam Blacker of Apptopia, a provider of app intelligence, wrote a blog on various modes of transportation and estimated “decreases in active usage for Uber and Lyft, while seeing increases in public transportation.” The article goes on to state “From January 2018 to January 2019, Uber and Lyft lost a combined 1.2 million average DAUs in the United States.”

The majority of the DAU loss would have come from Uber due to the relative size of the company compared to Lyft, therefore, we can generously assume Uber lost 600,000 DAU, or about half the amount Apptopia reported. According to other sources, Uber completes about 14 million trips per day, so losing 600,000 DAUs is substantial as it represents a minimum loss of about 5% (this percentage of DAU likely higher as not all 14 million trips come from DAUs).

Former Uber growth marketer, Andrew Chen, has pointed out that DAU and MAU for Uber is not a meaningful number as infrequent airport rides are a strong driver of revenue growth, for instance, and these users are not reflected in DAU or MAU.  However, when looking at past DAU compared to current DAU, this is a very meaningful number as it shows us relative churn and retention.

Uber Stock Lock-up Expires in November – Mark Your Calendar

If the S-1 numbers show massive losses of $3 billion and the Q1 earnings reports even worse losses of $1 billion per quarter, then why is Uber stock trading higher? My theory is that just like bitcoin, Uber has whales keeping the price steady until the lockup period expires. Before either ride-sharing company went public, I emphasized both IPOs would be liquidity events and to be especially cautious of the press, as PR is a cheap expense to protect the $60 billion that has been sunk into this startup. 

When Uber’s lock-up expires in November, the true valuation of Uber will surface in the months that follow. It can take up to two years for a public offering to settle after the lock-up period. While I do not expect an immediate dump on day one of the lock-up expiring in November, I believe there will be a noticeable unwinding in the months that follow. As more shares become available, the stock price will undergo dilution. If you think I’m wrong about the overall fundamentals, and you want to invest in Uber and Lyft, I would urge you to wait beyond the lock-up.

Check out my analysis on Zoom published prior to the IPO, where I called it the Best Silicon Valley IPO of the Year.

By now, investors know that Lyft’s ride-sharing IPO didn’t reach $100 per share like many of the media talking heads stated it would, and this will likely weigh on Uber’s IPO. Two weeks prior to Lyft’s IPO, I had warned that the risk listed in the prospectus, which warned Lyft may not become profitable, was more than fine print. Ride-sharing companies use investment money to lower the cost of the ride to create demand, which means the ride you take in a Lyft or Uber is not profitable, and will likely never be profitable.

Not one analyst rated Lyft as a sell going into earnings despite earnings estimates that called for accelerating net losses from negative $3.16 EPS to negative $3.97 EPS. Going into earnings this week, twelve analysts had rated Lyft as a buy compared to eight who rated it as a hold (What is wrong with these analysts?!).

With the most recent earnings, we have confirmation that my analysis, which detailed why Lyft can increase revenue yet cannot stop the losses, was accurate with expectations of an estimated $1.1 billion in losses this year.

Reuters published in 2015 that Uber passengers pay only 41 percent of the actual cost of their trips. At the time, Reuters warned that this creates an “artificial signal about the size of the market” when Uber released limited financial data that showed losses of $708 million per quarter. Four years later, little has changed.

How Uber’s IPO Compares to other IPOs:

Uber is an IPO that has been covered extensively. You may have heard comparisons of Uber’s IPO to Facebook or Alibaba. Uber is raising $9 billion in this week’s IPO, Facebook raised $16 billion in 2012 and Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014. Facebook and Alibaba are both doing great, seems to be the logic OR many tech companies are not profitable at the time of IPO is another costly mistake when comparing Uber to other IPOs.

Of course, these “big tech” comparisons don’t tell the whole story. Facebook had $1.75 billion in operating income, and $1 billion in net income in the year prior to the 2012 IPO. Alibaba had $1.7 billion in operating income, $1.3 billion in net income, and $2.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2013, the year prior to its IPO. To compare, Uber has a $3 billion operating loss, and negative $1.8 billion adjusted EBITDA.

Notably, for anyone glancing over the prospectus, Uber sold some operations in Russia and Asia, which provided one-time income, and caused the company to post $1 billion in net income. This is why net income should be ignored as it does not reflect the operating income or adjusted EBITDA. To summarize, Uber’s prospectus points towards “an accumulated deficit of $7.8 billion” in the years ending December 31, 2017 and 2018. The year prior (2017), Uber posted $4 billion in operating loss and negative $2.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA.

Chicken and the Egg – Both Broken:

Most investors know there have been numerous lawsuits against Uber with many examples listed on page 28 of the prospectus. Here is a sample of what it says:

“We are involved in numerous legal proceedings globally, including putative class and collective class action lawsuits, demands for arbitration, charges and claims before administrative agencies, and investigations or audits by labor, social security, and tax authorities that claim that Drivers should be treated as our employees (or as workers or quasi-employees where those statuses exist), rather than as independent contractors.”

This paragraph is followed by a list of class action lawsuits and state-level Supreme Court rulings that Uber has been involved with and the various legislation or judicial decisions that could have an adverse effect on the business and financial condition of the company.

Although being sued often comes with the territory for disruptive startups, this is unique as the work force is going on strike during the IPO (this is not a competitor suing over intellectual property, etc). The drivers and customers are a chicken-and-egg scenario and Uber struggles to pacify both to successfully operate. On one hand, Uber is subsidizing rides at up to 60% to lure the customers, and on the other hand, the workers are retaliating. This is not a good formula. Most importantly, Uber has no profit to absorb a change in business model, such as being required to pay minimum wages or health care.

Here are some charts:

If you need some charts, to prove what I’m saying, there is an overabundance of charts that show the issues Uber has with subsidizing rides “to create artificial signals about the market” (Reuters words, not mine).

Core platform is the margin Uber generates after direct expenses. As the prospectus states, “Core Platform Contribution Margin is a useful indicator of the economics of our Core Platform, as it does not include unallocated research and development and general and administrative expenses.” Here is what the margins look like:

The reasons Uber states the Core Platform Contribution Margin goes through periods of decline is due to competition in ridesharing (translation: Uber has to subsidize rides to remain competitive) and they also state it’s due to planned investments in Uber Eats. The problem is that Uber Eats only contributed $165 million in adjusted net revenue last quarter compared to ride sharing at $2.3 billion in adjusted net revenue, and therefore, the majority of the decline is likely due to the issues I stated above (rides are priced too low for profits but price of rides must remain low for demand).

Here’s another chart that shows you what it looks like when a company subsidizes purchases with the capital it has raised.

And here’s another one – perhaps the most critical as it shows the relationship between sales and profits:

As sales go up, gross bookings per trip goes down. This is a good indication that the business model requires the price of the ride to remain below fair value in order to drive demand. Although some reporters and analysts like to talk about Uber Eats, the issue is that Uber is valued at $90 billion+ and Uber Eats is a very small percentage of revenue. You can’t conclude that Uber Eats is a good investment opportunity as it makes up about 5% of Uber’s revenue and this won’t absorb the ride-sharing losses.

Notably, the chart which shows the unprofitable relationship between ridesharing trips and ridesharing gross bookings per trip is on page 106 of the Prospectus. On page one, we are presented with a sky-rocketing hockey stick chart based off the number of rides Uber has booked from 1 billion in March 2016 to 10 billion rides today. This 10x chart doesn’t tell the whole story like the charts above.

AVs – Long Ways Off:

This is where the story gets even more risky as the solution to the upset drivers is that these drivers will not be needed soon due to autonomous driving. Any company who is publicizing autonomous driving right now as a near-term way of driving profits is a good company to run from – and quickly.

We saw Lyft use this tactic to distract from their disappointing earnings this week with PR timed to the earnings report that “Waymo and Lyft partner to scale self-driving robotaxi service in Phoenix.” On closer look, Waymo will only add 10 vehicles to the Lyft app in their Arizona testing sites in Phoenix.

That aside, let’s go into the time machine for a minute to revisit stock prices relative to important product releases. Apple was priced at $11 in 2009, two years after the iPhone came out, and was priced at $35 in 2010, when the economy was doing a little better. Facebook was priced in the $25 range for years after they pivoted to a native mobile app and launched Messenger, both of which greatly contributed to the data collection and ad targeting that drives ad revenue today. Amazon was priced under $100 for nearly three years after the company launched AWS.

Point being, not only are autonomous vehicles a long way off from being commercially deployed to the public and able to generate profits, (and there is a ton of competition), but to invest in tech before it hits the market is high-stakes speculation. There is not one example where it made sense to invest in the company years before a tech product was released. Meanwhile, there are many examples where the stock price and valuations were low even after profitable products had gained traction. I’m not saying you want to be late to the market for AVs, rather I’m saying it can be just as costly to be this early – especially with companies that have ten digit losses.

Note: If you’ve read any of my previous analysis, you’ll know that I’ve been writing about the realities for autonomous vehicles for awhile now and how this does not match investors’ expectations. I won’t repeat my AV bubble thesis here but you can read quite a bit of this under my profile.

Don’t Get Duped on Uber IPO:

Sometimes investors get it wrong. We see this on the public markets frequently when a legendary investor goes all-in at the wrong time or a darling stock has a sudden drop. Well, guess what? Private investors get it wrong too sometimes. And the venture capitalists who invested in Uber and Lyft really got it wrong with ride-sharing. Their eyes lit up with the promise of a serviceable available market (SAM) and total addressable market (TAM) that would replace personal car ownership around the world. User growth is phenomenal and the brand is ubiquitous. VCs kept fueling more and more capital into the leaky ride-sharing business model and something prevented these VCs from using discipline to require proof of the following:

Question: will charging below a fair market price and subsidizing rides at up to 60% create a profit margin? Answer: No

Question: if we charge a fair market price to stop the losses, will there be enough demand? Answer: No.

The ride-sharing business model as we know it today will never be profitable. Meanwhile, the venture capitalists who bought into the world’s most valuable startup want their money back. Do you want to donate to the “pay VCs their $90-$120 billion” charity cause? If so, shares will be available Friday.