Uber lost over $5 billion in one quarter, but don’t worry, it gets worse

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Uber just reported its second quarterly earnings ever as a public company, and hoo boy! That’s a lot of red ink! The ride-hailing giant reported losing a whopping $5.2 billion in the last three months. No, there isn’t dirt on your screen. That’s billion with a “b.”
Lyft, which reported its earnings Wednesday, fared better but still posted a loss of $644 million during the quarter. The numbers for both companies look a lot better when adjusted for things like amortization of intangible assets and stock-based compensation for employees post-IPO. Excluding those expenses, Uber lost $1.3 billion and Lyft lost $197 million.
But analysts on Wall Street expected these losses, and so therefore we’re supposed to shrug and say “no big whoop.”…

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