UBER - Uber shares climb as growing customer base drives better-than-expected revenue

Uber ( NYSE: UBER ) rose about 8% in Tuesday's premarket action after the ride-hailing and delivery service revealed revenue for the latest quarter that surged more than 70% from last year, topping Wall Street's expectations. The improvement came amid double-digit advances in customers and trips.

The company posted Q3 revenue of $8.34B, jumping 72% from the previous year. The figure also topped analyst expectations by $220M. UBER added that gross bookings climbed 26% from last year. Leaving out the impact of currency exchange, the bookings figure was up 32%.

Turning to the bottom line, UBER reported a net loss of $1.2B, but that figure was cut in half from last year and included multiple non-operational charges. At the same time, the firm's GAAP loss of $0.61 per share missed expectations by $0.43 per share.

Still, the bottom line included $512M of what the company described as a "net headwind," mostly stemming from net unrealized losses UBER incurred after reevaluating its equity investments. The red ink for the quarter also included $482M in expenses related to stock-based compensation.

On an EBITDA basis, the company showed a dramatic improvement from 2021. UBER reported Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $516M, compared to just $8M in the same period last year.

UBER's results were boosted by an increase in Monthly Active Platform Consumers. The figure came in at 124M for Q3, up 14% from last year and 2% higher than the previous quarter. Trips on UBER's platform rose 19% from last year and 4% from Q2.

Looking ahead, the company predicted that Q4 gross bookings would increase by 23% to 27% compared to the previous year on a constant currency basis. UBER expects a currency headwind of 7 percentage points.

In addition, the firm sees adjusted EBITDA expanding in Q4 to a range between $600M and $630M.

While the market has reacted positively to UBER's latest report, there were skeptics headed into earnings release. See why Seeking Alpha contributor Geoff Considine believes analysts have been too optimistic about the company's outlook .

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