Uber CEO Dara khosrowshahi said in an email to employees today that Uber would cut spending and focus on becoming a leaner business to cope with the great changes in investor sentiment. "After the first quarter results, I spent a few days meeting with investors in New York and Boston. It is clear that the market is undergoing great changes and we need to respond accordingly," kosrosasi said in an email
Recently, US technology stocks fell sharply. Last week, the Nasdaq composite index fell for the fifth consecutive week, the longest consecutive decline since 2012.
In response to this shift in economic sentiment, Uber will slash spending on marketing and incentives and see recruitment as a "privilege", kosrosasi said.
"Our investment threshold will be higher and higher, which means that some initiatives that require a lot of money will be slowed down. Before we grow bigger, we must ensure 'unit economic benefits'. The lowest cost-effective marketing and incentive spending will be cut," kosrosasi said
"At the same time, we will regard recruitment as a privilege and carefully consider when and where to increase employees. We will control costs more strictly in all aspects."
This also makes Uber the latest technology company to slow down recruitment. Facebook told employees last week that it would stop or slow the recruitment of middle and senior positions. In addition, Robinhood, an online stock trading platform, will also cut jobs by about 9%.
Kosrosasi said that Uber will now focus on making profits on the basis of free cash flow, rather than adjusted EBITDA (profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization).
"We've made a lot of progress in profitability. We've set a goal of reaching $5 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2024. But now that goal has changed, it's about free cash flow. We can and should achieve it quickly," he said
Uber released its financial report for the first quarter of 2022 on Thursday, with a revenue of US $6.854 billion, an increase of 136% compared with us $2.903 billion in the same period last year. The net loss was US $5.93 billion, compared with us $108 million in the same period last year, a significant increase year-on-year.
Revenue more than doubled, mainly due to the recovery of online car Hailing business and take out business Uber eats. Kosrosasi said that although investors are happy with the growth of Uber eats after coming out of the epidemic, in fact, the business should grow faster. In addition, kosrosasi also said that the company's freight business is also a growth opportunity, and the demand will become greater.