Just curious - wouldn't the revenue of companies like Uber always be super high, but with low profit margin. Kinda like Walmart... Because lots of money switching hands is just what the company does.

(*) Unlike other companies like Apple, for example, that sell products they manufacture

In Uber's case though, their costs could be very low. They push off the vast majority of liability into their not-employees (for now), and don't have any capital expenses to speak of.

Uber spends a ton of money on three areas: R&D, new customer and driver acquisition (including marketing too), and legal/lobbying. These areas may taper down in growth in the future, but it's unlikely to shrink.

Also there is the huge red flag they may be forced to hire the drivers as employees.

Uber is paying for these costs through the fares their drivers collect. Non-ride insurance and vehicle capital costs do not show up as a line item on Uber's cash flow statement, but the fares cover them. Uber has other capital costs though.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

They're not though. What percent of drivers do you think have appropriate liability insurance?

Yes but they only take ~20% of gross revenue.

20% actually but if the costs are low and volume is high, that piece of pie would be worth a lot. Also ~20% is a much higher margin than what the retails operate on.

Yes I hit the wrong key and didn't notice. However, its 20% before expenses.

Please see if 10% is correct. As far as I know it used to be 20% in India which has been increased to 25% now.

The article is terribly mislabeled. Uber's bookings are scheduled to reach 26bill, not its revenue. Supposedly this year they will reach 10 bill in bookings, which would provide revenue of about 2 billion [1].

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-uber-tech-fundr...

Site is knackered for now, here's an archived copy:

https://archive.is/pokLR

But realistically their take is roughly 10% of that, at least as long as they use contractor drivers.

Site doesn't work.

Does the cited revenue number include what Uber collected on behalf of their contractors?

I would expect that's the only number. What other revenue could they have that would be even remotely close to $26 billion?

Well, what middleman cut does Uber take? 30%?

They could be a super unicorn with $87+ billion.