The chauffeur-driven booking application launched the procedure for its IPO in 2019.

The car-driver booking platform Uber has quietly launched this week's IPO, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said Friday night after a similar announcement by rival Lyft.

The WSJ, quoting sources close to the case, says Uber expects to be the first to enter the markets. It would target a listing in the first quarter while Lyft would target March or April, the newspaper adds.

It would be a shorter deadline than what was mentioned by the boss of the American group.

One of the biggest IPOs

Since joining Uber at the end of August 2017, Dara Khosrowshahi had indeed mentioned an IPO in the first half of 2019.

In mid-October, the WSJ claimed that the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were expected to be Uber's main advisors in this operation and would have presented valuation proposals which one of the most optimistic would advance 120 billion euros. dollars of market capitalization.

At more than 100 billion, the group based in San Francisco, would be the subject of the largest IPO ever in the technology sector. And Uber would be worth as much as General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, the top three US automakers, combined.

Redeem the image of the platform

An IPO of such magnitude would be especially a mark of investor confidence for Dara Khosrowshahi, who had been appointed to succeed the sulky founder Travis Kalanick, pushed to the exit by investors anxious scandals.

Khosrowshahi is trying to improve Uber's image and clean up a group's finances. For now, Uber has further increased its losses in the third quarter to more than a billion dollars.

But despite these losses, the group has assets likely to attract investors, particularly a booming business: the turnover for the third quarter amounted to 2.952 billion dollars, an increase of 5, 4% over the previous quarter and 38% over twelve months.

In general, the sector is attracting investments that could be multiplied by eight to reach $ 285 billion by 2030, according to a Goldman Sachs study released last year.

Another major attraction is the challenge of the autonomous car, seen as the future of the automobile, on which Uber works, like almost all major technology groups and car manufacturers.