During the final three months of 2021, the total number of Uber trips surged by 23 per cent to around 19 million daily.

Revenue was up by 83 per cent to $5.8 billion during the same period.

Adjusted EBITDA was above company expectations, growing year-on-year from a 2.6 per cent decline as a percentage of gross bookings to 0.3 per cent in the final quarter.

“We outperformed our quarterly guidance and delivered $540 million of Adjusted EBITDA improvement compared to Q4 of last year,” said Nelson Chai, CFO. “Moving forward, we are poised to continue to grow at scale while expanding profitability.”

This was in part driven by the company's food delivery business, which turned a profit for the first time during the 12-week period. Adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of delivery gross bookings increased by 1.6 per cent from a decline of 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020 to an rise of 0.2 per cent.

Overall, in the final months of the year, bookings were up 51 per cent to $25.9 billion – $13.4 billion of this accumulated by Uber's delivery bookings.

Across the whole of 2021, Uber saw the number of trips jump by 27 per cent, driving revenue up by 57 per cent from $11.1 billion to $17.4 billion compared to 2020.

Gross bookings for the year surged by 56 per cent to $90.4 billion, up from $57.9 billion in the previous year.

“Our results demonstrate just how far we’ve come since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive. “In Q4, more consumers were active on our platform than ever before, Delivery reached Adjusted EBITDA profitability, and Mobility Gross Bookings approached pre-pandemic levels.

“While the Omicron variant began to impact our business in late December, Mobility is already starting to bounce back, with Gross Bookings up 25 per cent month-on-month in the most recent week.”

For the first quarter of this year, the company expects gross bookings of $25-26 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of $100-130 million.

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