The U.S. company posted holiday season revenue of $5.8 billion, up 83% year-on-year, according to its earnings release on Wednesday.

Its title took more than 5% during electronic trading after the close of trading.

“Our results show how far we have come since the start of the pandemic,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, the company's boss, quoted in the press release.

"In the fourth quarter, we have more active consumers on our platform than ever before," he added, referring to the app's 118 million "monthly active users."

He also pointed out that for the ride-hailing business, gross bookings (essentially the amount collected before drivers are paid) are almost back to pre-pandemic levels.

"The Omicron variant started affecting our business in late December, but rides are already bouncing back," he said.

Uber has suffered greatly from the drop in business and personal travel in 2020 and 2021, to the point of having to delay its profitability objectives.

The Californian group then invested in deliveries, and this activity quickly became more important than journeys.

In all, from October to December, deliveries brought in $2.4 billion to Uber (+78% year-on-year), and trips, 2.3 billion (+55%).

Over the year 2021, Uber reached $ 17.5 billion in revenue and largely reduced its losses to 496 million, instead of the 6.8 billion net losses in 2020.

The status of drivers

In November, Dara Khosrowshahi, was pleased to have released for the first time a gross operating surplus (earnings before interest, taxes and amortization or Ebitda) of 8 million dollars.

"This superb quarter should put an end to the many questions, not always unjustified, that we have been asked about our economic model. Does it work? The answer is yes," he assured during the conference to analysts.

But Uber has not finished proving that the economic model it has created, that of the "gig economy" ("economy of odd jobs"), is socially viable.

The self-employed status for drivers, essential to this model, is indeed questioned in many countries.

In the United Kingdom, the British Supreme Court ruled a year ago that Uber drivers were not self-employed and should benefit from minimum social rights: minimum wage and paid holidays.

The Spanish government went further, changing the law in March 2021 so that couriers using delivery apps are considered employees.

In the United States, the Biden administration in May reversed regulations adopted by the Trump administration making it more difficult for platform workers to claim employee status, in order to "maintain workers' rights to minimum wages and overtime protections".

The battle is first played out where Uber was born, in California.

The state passed a law in 2019 considering them as employees.

Uber counter-attacked in 2020 by having the self-employed status of drivers approved by referendum.

But this referendum was declared unconstitutional by a judge last August.

The case continues.

© 2022 AFP