Uber has turned profitable in all of its developed markets.
The company’s operations in North America, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa are now returning profits, Financial Times reported.
“We have hundreds of cities that are profitable globally,” said Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in an interview with FT. “That allows us to invest in new places and to sustainably invest in a very expensive place like China.”
The company now also seems to be profiting in China — a market where it has long faced intense competition from Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which stands atop the space with the largest market share.
Uber’s change of fortune comes just four months after Kalanick said that the company was losing a billion dollars a year in the Chinese market. “We are number two in China, which means that we still have a ways to go,” Kalanick said. “But we are putting everything on the field.”
According to Kalanick, Uber’s China operation is currently funded thorough profits, investment money and direct investment from backers.
As it turns profitable, the San Francisco-based company is continuing on its fundraising streak with $13 billion already under its belt — half of which was raised last year, FT reported. Its continued appetite for fresh capital underscores its growing pains in China and India, where the company has a whole new level of regulatory challenges and faces a razor-sharp competition with local and other international players.
Uber’s switch to profitability comes at a time when its market position in Europe is continuously weakening with more regulatory challenges, restrictions and big fines. Just last week, the company was slapped with a roughly $1 million fine by a Paris court. The company is also facing challenges in the U.S., its most profitable market. The company recently agreed to settle a $100 million class-action lawsuit filed by California- and Massachusetts-based drivers and is now bracing itself for several lawsuits being filed by its driver community.
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