Earnings to watch: Uber (UBER) reports Q3 results tomorrow

What happened

Uber reports third-quarter results Wednesday morning. Last quarter it reported revenue of $14.19 billion, up 12.2% from a year earlier, with 208 million users, up 15.6%. This quarter the market expects revenue growth of 9.2%, slower than the 20.4% rise in the same quarter last year.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

Slower expected growth means each new user and trip adds less to revenue than a year ago, so investors will focus on whether profit per sale holds up. Analysts recently reconfirmed their estimates, but Uber has missed revenue estimates several times in the past two years, which raises the risk of a negative surprise.

Analyst inference

Peer gig-economy results are mixed: Fiverr's revenue fell 15.8% while beating estimates and its stock rose 3.8%, and Upwork's revenue fell 8% while topping estimates. These figures suggest spending on freelance-style services is weakening, a read-across investors may apply to Uber's delivery and ride demand.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Market expects Uber revenue to grow 9.2% year on year, down from 20.4% in the same quarter last year, according to the article's cited consensus. Confirmed
2. Analysts covering Uber have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they expect the business to stay the course heading into the earnings report. Proposed
3. Watch whether Uber misses revenue estimates again, since the article says it has missed Wall Street's revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years. Analyst inference

Evidence

• stockstory.org