By Natalie Walters
Uber brings in the sales, that much is for sure.
The ride-sharing company reported a 16% increase in quarterly bookings on Wednesday despite recent controversies, including allegations of sexual harassment, and its continuing search for a CEO. Uber also managed to report a narrower loss for the past quarter than the previous period. For the second quarter, Uber reported a loss of $645 million, which is 9% less than the $708 million it lost in the first quarter.
The bottom line is that Uber is making a lot of money off of riders because it doesn’t have to pay to acquire them, they just keep coming back on their own Mitchell Green, managing partner of Uber investor Lead Edge Capital, told TheStreet.
“Uber is literally printing money off its riders and it’s an enormous market,” he said. “Once you use Uber once, you tend to get addicted,” Green said.
Uber should get a boost in the next quarter after announcing in early August that it was shuttering its subprime car-leasing operation called Xchange that helped get cars for Uber drivers with bad credit scores, according to Green. The company decided to do away with the business after realizing they had miscalculated how much they would lose per vehicle. Uber lost an average of $9,000 per car, vs. the $500 per car that it originally predicted.
“That should really help them out,” Green said.
