Uber India’s profits rise 63% to Rs 43 crore in FY19

Uber India Systems’ total profits increased 63.41% year-on-year to Rs 43.24 crore in the year to March 2019. Revenue from operations grew 71% y-o-y to Rs 891.85 crore in FY19, according to the company’s RoC filings sourced from business signals platform paper.vc.

Total expenses shot up to Rs 826 crore in FY19 compared to Rs 492.91 crore in FY18, a rise of 67.59%, the filings showed.

The US-based ride-hailing firm is looking at India to drive growth. In the next ten years, the company’s growth will be defined by markets like India, Africa and the Middle-East, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO at Uber Technologies, said at an event in New Delhi in October.

“Profitability metric of our business here (India) is improving. We will continue to remain and invest here,” Khosrowshahi had said.

Uber Technologies posted its largest-ever quarterly loss, a whopping $5.24 billion in the three months ended June 2019. Losses remained elevated at $1.2 billion in Q3 2019.

In India, Uber competes with Ola – the two jointly dominate the country’s ride-sharing space. Analysts at Morgan Stanley expect the market to be a leader in shared mobility by 2030. They estimate shared miles to reach 35% of all miles travelled in the country by 2030, which will further increase to 50% by 2040.

Ola narrowed its losses to Rs 1,160.27 crore in FY19 from Rs 2,676.70 crore in FY18. Revenue from operations rose to Rs 1,885.61 crore in FY19 from Rs 1,490.66 crore in the previous year. In November, Uber India received Rs 1,767.46 crore in fresh capital from Netherlands-based entities Uber International Holding BV and Uber International BV.

Although Uber claims India to be a big market on the ride-share side, its food delivery service UberEats seems to be struggling to gain a foothold in the country.

Swiggy and Zomato, backed by deep-pocketed Naspers and Ant Financial, respectively, lead India’s food delivery market. Uber is scouting for potential buyers for its food delivery business. Reportedly, Zomato is in advanced talks to buy UberEats.