Uber shares drop sharply in premarket trade after it misses on earnings-per-share, but bookings jump by a fifth

  • Uber shares dropped as much as 8% in premarket trading after reporting first quarter results Wednesday.

  • The ride-hailing giant saw gross bookings climb 20% and revenue slightly beat expectations.

  • Earnings-per-share was significantly below Wall Street forecasts, however.

Uber's share price dropped as much as 8% in premarket trading Wednesday after it reported a mixed bag of Q1 results.

Its gross bookings of $37.7 billion were up 20% compared to the same period last year, but fell short of its target. Plus, its forecast for gross bookings in the second quarter was also shy of Wall Street's expectations.

The ride-hailing app reported revenue of $10.13 billion, just about Wall Street expectations of revenues of $10.11 billion. Its earnings-per-share, however, missed forecasts, coming in at negative $0.32, compared to a forecast of $0.22.

The firm reported an income from operations of $172 million, but the Financial Times reported analysts had forecast this to be over $600 million. Uber cited "discrete legal and regulatory reserve changes and settlements."

It's also facing a $300 million lawsuit from more than 10,000 black-cab drivers in London, which was filed last week.

By contrast, rival ride-hailing company Lyft posted better-than-expected results a day earlier.

In a press release, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: "Our results this quarter once again demonstrate our ability to deliver consistent, profitable growth at scale."

"More than 7 million people now choose to earn flexibly on Uber every month, with driver earnings of $16.6 billion continuing to grow faster than our topline," he added.

While shares dropped as much as 8% in premarket trade on the initial results, at the time of publication, the company's stock rebounded a little and was set to open down around 6% to trade at $66.20, per Markets Insider data.

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