Uber sees first profitable year

Uber reported its first annual operating profit as a limited company, earning $1.1 billion, compared with a $1.8 billion loss the year before.

During the final quarter of the year, riders booked 2.6 billion trips – about 28 million per day.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who took the reins in 2017, has led “one of the best turnarounds ever in the tech world,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. Uber is “not slowing down.”

Khosrowshahi noted the year “was an inflection point” for Uber, “proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale. Our audiences are larger and more engaged than ever, with our platform powering an average of nearly 26m daily trips last year.”