Uber to Close Massively Loss-Making US Car Leasing Business (Aug 8, 2017)

The Wall Street Journal reports that Uber is planning to shut down its US car leasing business, which was apparently losing $9,000 per car instead of the $500 Uber projected it would lose when creating the program. It sounds like Uber might have around $800 million in cars leased through the program, which Uber apparently holds titles to in trust rather than on its books, and it may have to sell many of them and the associated leases to get out of the business. The program and this outcome are indicative of Uber’s enormously aggressive expansion strategy and the huge sums it’s sometimes incurred in poorly thought out initiatives which have ended up significantly worsening its losses. Though it’s most common to see Uber’s losses attributed to its subsidies in ride sharing itself, a good chunk of its losses are made in these other aspects of its business and could be cut back significantly as it focuses on more rapid progress towards profitability. I suspect cutting the leasing program in particular wouldn’t dent growth much but would certainly go a long way towards improving margins. It’s also likely another example of an area where Uber might well do better to partner with a small number of large, reputable firms rather than taking such a direct role in the operation – in general, Uber seems far less willing to partner than Lyft, which is arguably holding it back in some areas.

via WSJ


The company, topic, and narrative tags below will take you to other posts with the same tags. The narrative link(s) will also take you to the narrative essay which provides additional context behind the post.

Vote for or share this post

Use the Like button below to vote for this post as one of the most important of the week. The posts voted most important are more likely to be included in the News Roundup podcast episode I do each week. Or use the sharing buttons to share a link to this post to social networks or other services.