Shares in Uber Technologies Inc. rose in after-hours trading after the company reported strong quarterly results.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Uber reported adjusted earnings per share of 44 cents, reversing a loss of 54 cents per share in the same quarter of last year. Revenue jumped 83%, to $5.82 billion.

Analysts had been expecting a loss of 32 cents per share on revenue of $5.4 billion.

It was a tale of COVID-19 recovery for Uber as metrics rose across the board. Gross bookings in the quarter shot up 51% up year-over-year, to $25.9 billion. That was driven by a 67% year-over-year rise in Uber’s Mobility segment, which includes its ride-hailing business, coming in at $11.3 billion. Uber’s Delivery segment also showed strong growth, up 34% from the same quarter of last year, to $13.4 billion.

Trips in the quarter increased to 1.77 billion, up 23% year-over-year, with Uber seeing about 19 million trips per day on average.

Uber’s Mobility segment earned a profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $582 million, up $282 million year-over-year, remaining Uber’s most profitable business. Delivery saw adjusted earnings of $25 million, up $170 million year-over-year and the first time Uber’s delivery services have been profitable.

The company’s bottom line was helped by unattributed income from its equity investments. Uber’s investments in Grab Holdings Ltd. and Aurora Innocation Inc. rose, but those gains were partially offset by unrealized losses from its stake in Didi Global Ltd.

“Our results demonstrate just how far we’ve come since the beginning of the pandemic,” Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement. “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.”

Khosrowshahi added that “while the Omicron variant began to impact our business in late December, Mobility is already starting to bounce back, with gross bookings up 25% month-on-month in the most recent week.”

Looking forward, Uber predicts adjusted earnings of $100 million to $130 million on projected gross bookings of between $25 billion and $26 billion.

Investors liked the numbers. Uber shared rose more than 5% after the bell.

Photo: Pixabay