Uber Technologies Inc.’s finance chief said the company is focused on boosting its revenue and income after achieving an important profitability milestone during its latest quarter. 

In early November, San Francisco-based Uber said that it recorded adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $8 million for the quarter ended September 30. This was the first time in its decade-long history that Uber announced a positive figure for this metric, helped by a recovery in its rides business and the continued strength of its food-delivery unit, Uber Eats.

However, the company’s quarterly net loss widened to $2.42 billion from $1.09 billion during the prior-year period. It was largely dragged down by a loss from its equity investments in companies such as Didi Global Inc, for example, which is a Chinese ride-hailing company. 

Uber has reported a net profit under generally accepted accounting principles twice – the first time was in 2018 and second time during the second quarter of this year, thanks to unrealized gains on investment holdings. Mr. Chai commented: 

“We have an intention to get to GAAP profitability.”

He has been Uber’s CFO since 2018. Before that, he used to bea chief executive at CIT Bank and Warranty Group and worked as finance chief at Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis and for NYSE Euronext. 

The company’s  plans are to update investors on its profitability targets and spending plans in February.  Mr. Chai refused to comment on when Uber could report a net profit based on the strength of its operations rather than investment gains.

During the pandemic, Uber’s ride-sharing business suffered heavily as bookings were temporarily failing which prompted the company to cut costs by about $1 billion, in part by laying off workers. Not only that but the company also sold various assets, including its autonomous driving unit and its bikes and scooters business, while holding on to its freight business.

Mr, Chai said that last year, the company withdrew from countries where it didn’t see itself achieving a market-leading position. A spokesman said that this move required about 20 actions, including exits and deals to sell operations to rivals.

Highlights of the third quarter of 2021 vs. the third quarter of 2020

The revenue for Q3 2021 reached $556 million, up 30%, with organic business growth of $58 million, or 14%, was driven by growth in services provided to both existing and new clients. Growth from prior acquisitions of $71 million, or 16%, was primarily attributable to AI-focused acquisitions. Organic revenue growth included a favourable foreign currency impact of less than 1%, predominantly driven by the Euro to the U.S. dollar rate.

YTD Q3 2021 vs. YTD Q3 2020 highlights

The company also announced YTD Q3 2021 revenue of $1,594 million, up 40%, with organic growth of $201 million or 18% was driven by growth in services provided to existing clients and revenue from new clients, while growth from prior acquisitions was $253 million or 22%. Organic revenue growth included a foreign currency impact of approximately 3%, predominantly driven by the Euro to the U.S. dollar rate.

Along with the revenue growth the team member count reached 58,527, which was an increase of 21% year-over-year, reflecting growth across several geographies to meet increased client demand and business expansion.

Jeff Puritt, President and CEO of TELUS International, commented:

“In the third quarter of 2021, our TELUS International team continued to win business with both new and existing clients, driving solid organic growth and demonstrating ongoing momentum from our AI-focused acquisitions completed over the past twelve months. Notably, our team’s consistent and determined execution of our long-term strategy builds upon our strong performance in the comparable prior year period, and also reflects impressive sequential growth from our second quarter results. Our deliberate approach of focusing on designing, building and delivering higher value digital services, as well as leveraging our significant expertise in content moderation and AI services on behalf of our marquee technology and games clients, has helped fuel our profitable growth.”

Vanessa Kanu, CFO, added:

“Our business is successfully keeping up with client demand and our momentum remains positive for us to reaffirm our outlook for the full year, with strong double-digit growth in 2021. As a new public company, we continue to raise our profile in the financial markets. Our recent successful secondary offering of subordinate voting shares, primarily from Baring Private Equity Asia, was the first such transaction since our initial public offering, generating significant institutional investor interest and resulting in an offering that was oversubscribed and upsized. We are very happy to welcome some new long-term investors in TELUS International.”

Net income of $23 million and Diluted EPS of $0.09: Net income margin was 4.1%. Net income and Diluted EPS include the impact of share-based compensation, acquisition and integration charges and amortization of purchased intangible assets, among other items. Adjusted net income, which excludes the impact of these items, was 32% higher year-over-year at $70 million in the third quarter of 2021.

Adjusted EBITDA of $137 million, up 23%, and Adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.6%, were primarily driven by the revenue growth, client mix shift, and efficiencies. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.26, up 13% year-over-year.

The increase in revenue was fueled by both strong organic growth and the acquisitions of Riada from Sweden, Beecom from Switzerland and Contribyte from Finland. Now the majority of the income and customer base resides outside Finland. Eficode now has more than 1000 customers, with a number of significant new customers including McLaren, Deutsche Telekom, and Sandvik.

Companies continue to look for competitive advantages from software development and from more agile workplaces. This means businesses across Europe need more advice, training and help transforming and adopting an Agile and DevOps culture in their software development. Eficode has signed multiple agreements, especially with the customers in the finance industry, to adopt the Jira Alignsolution, often in association with The Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®).

Eficode ROOT DevOps Platform was selected by one of the world’s biggest online gaming companies, alongside numerous other businesses across Continental Europe and the Nordics. Eficode CEO, Ilari Nurmi, said:

“Businesses keep adopting Agile and DevOps. That takes know-how from a wide range of areas: people, processes, and tools. We are honoured that so many businesses turn to us for guidance and advice on this. And I am proud of our now more than 450 Eficodeans for their exceptional work every day.”

The EU Website Accessibility Directive continued to fuel our accessibility projects, reinforcing our position as the recognized provider of accessibility and UX research. Eficode also continued to expand the software modernization and cloud transformation projects internationally.

A growing number of companies, including the ethical cosmetics firm Lush and office-sharing firm WeWork, have begun taking payments for goods and services in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, alongside debit payments, credit or cash.

But while the shift has been welcomed by crypto-enthusiasts, experts said it could be an easy way for directors to hide cash from authorities, particularly when companies go bust.

Julie Palmer, a managing director at insolvency firm Begbies Traynor, said the growing popularity of cryptocurrency payments would make it harder for administrators – who are in charge of winding down a business after it fails – to track where money has come from, and whether owners, staff or directors are stripping funds out of the business illegally.

It means criminals could walk away with income that would usually be clawed back and distributed to creditors, including the tax collectors at HM Revenue and Customs and local authorities.

Palmer said that without new regulations and taxation plans, the government could face huge losses. She warned:

“The potential is limitless, depending on how popular this becomes.”

Palmer said there was nothing the insolvency profession could do to tackle the issue on its own and believes UK authorities – who are a “year or two behind” the US on the issue – should take action and introduce laws to ensure crypto-assets are properly regulated and taxed. She said:

“It’s potentially a major loss of income tax revenue.”

The Treasury is reviewing evidence from a consultation on how to regulate crypto-assets.

The review is taking place at the same time as the Bank of England and the Treasury weigh up the possibility of digital assets being integrated into the UK’s monetary system, potentially via a Bank-issued asset sometimes dubbed “Britcoin”.

While the Bank has signalled that it is open to the idea, its chief economist Andy Haldane has dismissed as fanciful the idea that existing cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could become a standard payments mechanism.