Uber runs a platform connecting consumers with drivers, restaurants and stores, and shippers with carriers. The filing says substantially all revenue comes from fees paid by drivers and merchants, with Uber acting as an agent and booking revenue net of what it passes on; in some markets it is responsible for the service and books revenue gross, and Freight is mostly gross. Advertising, sold to merchants and brands, is the third source. Three segments: Mobility, Delivery and Freight, measured by the CEO on segment Adjusted EBITDA. No assets are reported by segment.
The business in one page
Revenue was $52,017 million, up 18.3%, and all of it volume: trips grew 20.3% while gross bookings per trip fell 0.7%. Mobility is 57.0% of revenue and grew 18.3%, Delivery 33.2% and grew 25.4%, Freight 9.8% and shrank 0.8%. Income from operations nearly doubled to $5,565 million, taking the operating margin from 6.4% to 10.7%, with every cost line growing more slowly than revenue. The United States and the United Kingdom together are 66.1% of revenue. Uber One had 46 million members and the platform about 34,000 employees at year end.
Two things make the bottom line unrepresentative. Net income of $10,053 million includes $5,011 million from releasing a valuation allowance on Dutch deferred tax assets, after $6.4 billion released on US assets the year before, so the effective rate is minus 74.8%. And operating cash flow is lifted by insurance reserves, which grew 27.2% to $12,463 million, faster than revenue: that increase equals 27.2% of free cash flow.
What we think matters
- Operating leverage that actually showed up
- Cash generation on almost no capital
- A share count that is falling
- Half the earnings are a tax release
- Cash flow leaning on insurance reserves
- No measurable pricing power
How Uber Technologies makes money
Competitive advantage
The filing grounds it in the network: over 15,000 cities in more than 70 countries, and 202 million monthly active platform consumers in the fourth quarter, up 18%.
Consumers who use both Mobility and Delivery generate over three times the gross bookings of those who use one, and about 58% of first-time Delivery consumers in the fourth quarter were new to the platform.
The company describes its own industry as having low barriers to entry, low switching costs and well-capitalised competitors in nearly every major region, naming Lyft, Bolt, Didi, DoorDash and Instacart.
No market shares, contracts or licences protecting the position are disclosed. In autonomous driving the filing names Waymo, Tesla and Zoox, and notes Waymo runs a fleet both on its own platform and on Uber's.
Pricing power
No prices or tariff revisions are published; the indirect measures exist only for the two years with gross bookings.
Revenue over gross bookings slipped from 27.0% to 26.9%. Mobility rose from 30.2% to 30.4%, Delivery from 18.4% to 19.0%.
Gross bookings per trip fell from $13.98 to $13.88, minus 0.7%, while trips grew 20.3%: the growth is volume.
The Delivery take rate rose alongside $568 million more advertising revenue, paid by merchants and brands rather than by consumers, while insurance expense rose $851 million on rate per mile and miles driven.
Growth transparency
Revenue grew 18% both as reported and in constant currency.
The only acquisition described is Trendyol GO at $694 million, whose contribution the filing calls an immaterial amount of revenue and loss before taxes.
Note 7 nonetheless records $131 million of goodwill from Mobility acquisitions, and the cash flow statement shows $815 million of acquisition outflows against $694 million for Trendyol GO. The rest is not described.
By market, the United Kingdom grew 26.7% and the United States 10.9%; by segment, Delivery 25.4%, Mobility 18.3%, Freight minus 0.8% in what the filing calls a challenging freight cycle.
Scalability
Every cost line grew more slowly than revenue: cost of revenue 17.6%, operations and support 4.5%, sales and marketing 12.9%, research and development 9.4%, depreciation and amortisation 1.1%.
General and administrative fell 10.9%, or $398 million, which the filing attributes to a $549 million decrease in legal-related accruals: the single largest contributor to the margin gain, worth 2.0 of 4.3 points.
Income from operations grew 98.8% on revenue up 18.3%.
Share-based compensation is falling as a share of revenue, from 5.2% in FY2023 to 3.5%, though it is still 74.7% of the gap between Adjusted EBITDA and GAAP EBITDA.
Catalysts identified in the filing
- $19.2 billion of buyback authorisation left
Of a $27.0 billion programme, $19,216 million remained at year end, equal to 11.4% of market capitalisation. In the fourth quarter alone 21.4 million shares were repurchased.
- Delivery and advertising
Delivery grew 25.4% and its Adjusted EBITDA margin went from 18.0% to 20.7%, helped by $568 million more advertising revenue. The filing says only about one in five eligible consumers uses both Mobility and Delivery each month, and that consumers who use both generate over three times the gross bookings.
- Türkiye after Trendyol GO
In February 2026 Uber agreed to buy Getir's food delivery business outright and a minority of its grocery business for $435 million in cash, with the food business expected to close in the second half of 2026. It is recorded as a subsequent event.
- Autonomous vehicles through partners
Uber, or fleet operators it designates, has committed to at least 20,000 Lucid vehicles with Nuro Level 4 systems over six years from production targeted for 2026. The filing calls the cash requirement undetermined and lists the timelines as a risk.
- A cheaper balance sheet and a possible VAT refund
Interest expense fell 15.9% after the September 2025 refinancing. Separately, if the UK appeal succeeds the roughly $1.8 billion already paid would come back with interest; since it sits as a receivable, the effect would be on cash rather than earnings.
Financial analysis
Figures for 3 fiscal years, taken from the Key Metrics tables of each annual report. When a later filing restates a figure, we use the figure reported for that year's own filing.
Key metrics
| Metric | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $37.3B | $44.0B | $52.0B |
| Gross margin | 39.8% | 39.4% | 39.8% |
| Operating margin | 3.0% | 6.4% | 10.7% |
| Net margin (GAAP) | 5.1% | 22.4% | 19.3% |
| Operating cash flow | $3.59B | $7.14B | $10.1B |
| Capex | $0.22B | $0.24B | $0.34B |
| Free cash flow | $3.36B | $6.90B | $9.76B |
| Stock-based compensation | $1.94B | $1.80B | $1.83B |
| Dividends + buybacks | $0.00B | $1.25B | $6.52B |
| Net cash | – | -$4.46B | -$4.67B |
| Total debt | – | $11.4B | $12.3B |
| Shareholders’ equity | $11.2B | $21.6B | $27.0B |
| Effective tax rate | 9.2% | -139.6% | -74.8% |
| ROIC (tax at 21%) | – | 8.2% | 13.4% |
Key risks
The main weaknesses and risks identified in the latest annual report, in the order the report presents them.
- Half the earnings are a tax release
Of $10,053 million of net income, $5,011 million comes from releasing the valuation allowance on Dutch deferred tax assets, after $6.4 billion released on US assets in FY2024. On earnings adjusted for that one item the multiple goes from 16.7 to 33.4 times. Cash taxes paid were $345 million, 5.9% of pre-tax income.
- Cash flow leaning on insurance reserves
Insurance reserves grew 27.2% to $12,463 million against revenue up 18.3%, and that increase, $2,660 million, is 27.2% of free cash flow. Additions of $4,879 million exceeded claims paid of $2,421 million. Their valuation is a Critical Audit Matter and Uber keeps a significant part of the risk through its captive.
- No measurable pricing power
Gross bookings per trip fell 0.7% and the overall take rate slipped from 27.0% to 26.9%. The filing publishes no prices, and describes an industry with low barriers to entry, low switching costs and well-capitalised competitors in nearly every major region.
- Legal and regulatory cost that keeps recurring
Legal, non-income tax and regulatory reserve changes excluded from Adjusted EBITDA total $1,696 million over three years, against accrued liabilities up from $1.5 billion to $2.1 billion. More than 150,000 US drivers have filed or intend to file arbitration demands over classification.
- A fifth of revenue under a changed tax regime
Uber has paid HMRC roughly $1.8 billion of VAT assessments, carried as a receivable pending appeal, and expects further assessments for 2023 to 2025. From January 2026 the regime that taxed the margin rather than gross bookings no longer applies. The United Kingdom is 20.4% of revenue.
Open questions the filing does not answer
- What will the end of the VAT Order 1987 do to UK margins, and how large are the assessments still expected for 2023 to 2025?
- What is the range of reasonably possible loss on the driver classification litigation? The filing declines to quantify it.
- How much of the growth in insurance reserves is volume and how much is cost per mile, accident year by accident year?
- Which acquisitions produced $131 million of goodwill in Mobility, and what revenue did they bring? Only Trendyol GO is described.
- What is total advertising revenue? Only the $568 million increase in Delivery advertising is given.
- What will the Lucid-Nuro commitment cost, and who carries the residual value risk on at least 20,000 vehicles?
At $81.71 and 2,058,115,983 shares, the market valued Uber at $168,169 million, 16.7 times reported earnings but 33.4 times earnings stripped of the Dutch tax release, 17.2 times free cash flow and 31.2 times EBIT. The free cash flow yield is 5.8%, and 4.7% net of share-based compensation. At constant flows the price takes 21 years of free cash flow net of pay, or 29 years of owner earnings, to return: it embeds growth the filing does not size.
What has been earned is real operating leverage: income from operations went from $1,110 million to $5,565 million in two years, free cash flow is 18.8% of revenue on capital expenditure of $336 million, and the share count fell 1.9% because buybacks ran at more than three times share-based pay. What is not yet demonstrated is pricing power, since revenue per trip fell and the take rate slipped from 27.0% to 26.9%, and durability of the cash, since more than a quarter of free cash flow is the increase in insurance reserves. The thesis rests on three conditions, each checkable in later filings: the operating margin holding above 10% even if legal accruals return to 2024 levels; insurance reserves ceasing to outgrow revenue; and the new UK VAT regime, effective January 2026, not eroding a market worth a fifth of revenue.
Strengths
- Operating leverage that actually showed up
Income from operations went from $1,110 million in FY2023 to $5,565 million, and the margin from 3.0% to 10.7%. Every cost line grew more slowly than revenue in FY2025; general and administrative fell 10.9%, worth 2.0 of the 4.3 points of margin gained.
- Cash generation on almost no capital
Free cash flow was $9,763 million, 18.8% of revenue, on capital expenditure of $336 million. Even after deducting share-based compensation in full it is $7,937 million.
- A share count that is falling
Shares outstanding fell 1.9% to 2,067.9 million. Buybacks of $6,523 million were more than three times share-based compensation of $1,826 million, which is itself down to 3.5% of revenue from 5.2% two years ago.
- Leverage under control
Net debt including leases is $4,669 million, 0.74 times GAAP EBITDA, and interest cover rose to 12.6 times. The 7.50% and 6.25% notes were redeemed in September 2025 and refinanced at 4.15% and 4.80%; the $5 billion revolver is undrawn.
- Growth that came from volume, not from deals
Trips grew 20.3% and revenue 18% both as reported and in constant currency. The only acquisition the filing describes, Trendyol GO at $694 million, is said to have contributed an immaterial amount of revenue.
Last year’s watch-list, checked against this filing
| What we flagged | What happened | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Share repurchase authorisations: $7.0 billion in February 2024, increased by $20.0 billion in July 2025 | $1,252 million bought in 2024 and $6,523 million in 2025, with $19,216 million left | ON TRACK - $7,784 million of the $27.0 billion used |
| 2025 Convertible Notes, $1.15 billion maturing December 2025 | Repaid in cash in the fourth quarter of 2025 | MET |
| Foodpanda Taiwan acquisition agreed in May 2024 for about $950 million | Blocked by the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission in January 2025; $236 million termination fee paid in April 2025 | FAILED - cost $236 million |
| Freight Series A redemption, right exercised in October 2023 | Redeemed in cash for $851 million in October 2024 | MET |
| 2022 cloud contracts, minimum spend of $2.1 billion through November 2029 | The filing states the commitment was satisfied, yet the same paragraph still counts the $2.1 billion inside $2.4 billion of non-cancelable commitments | UNCLEAR - the filing contradicts itself |
| Margin, investment or growth targets for the year | Not reported in the filing | COMPARISON NOT POSSIBLE |
What to watch in the next filing
- GAAP operating margin. Below 8.0%, from 10.7%, and the operating leverage of the last two years is not proven.
- Insurance reserves against revenue. Above 27%, from 24.0%, and the cost of risk is growing faster than the business.
- Free cash flow net of share-based pay. Below $6,000 million, from $7,937 million, and the implied yield falls under 3.6%.
- Legal, non-income tax and regulatory reserve changes. Above $1,000 million a year and the cost is back at 2024 levels.
- Revenue against gross bookings. Below 26%, from 26.9%, and pricing power is going the wrong way.
Research on Uber Technologies, Inc.
Everything we have published on this company, newest first.