UBER - More EBITDA Losses at Uber Freight but Ron Touts Brokerage-TMS Integration | Benzinga
Uber (NYSE: UBER) Freight's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the first quarter, released Wednesday as part of the parent company's earnings report, showed a loss of $21 million. That is $2 million better than the first quarter of 2023 but worse than every other quarter of 2023 as well as the fourth quarter of 2022. In 2022's third quarter, Uber Freight posted positive EBITDA of $1 million, the only quarter it has ended up in the black on an EBITDA basis.
Among other highlights in the quarterly earnings report, Uber Freight's revenue declined 8% to $1.28 billion, down from $1.4 billion. That revenue was flat sequentially.
Uber Freight announced its acquisition of Transplace in 2022, bringing together a leading provider of transportation management system technology with the digital brokerage. Despite the continued EBITDA losses, Ron said in the interview that the progress envisioned when the acquisition was made is on track.
"We are the largest transportation management and TMS provider in the industry" Ron said, measuring that by what he said was $18 billion of freight under management.
And even though the losses are growing rather than retreating, Ron said he likes where Uber Freight is now. "More than half the business has a very stable and growing revenue stream" he said. "It is more a SaaS (software-as-a-service)-like business that is completely separate from the ebbs and flows of marketplace pricing that brokerages are exposed to."
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