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AP Business Case Study · Unit 3, Task 6

Uber: From Billions in Losses to an Operating Profit

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Unit 3 · The Income Statement

A real-company case study for Unit 3, Task 6 of AP Business with Personal Finance, written in the same format as the course's business cases. Read the case, answer each question on your own, then open the sample answers to check your thinking. Facts are current as of October 2026, and every source is listed at the bottom.

The Case

Unit & taskUnit 3, Task 6: The Income Statement
Topic3.6
Key peopleDara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Uber); Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah (Chief financial officer when Uber reported its 2023 and 2025 results); Balaji Krishnamurthy (Identified as incoming chief financial officer in Uber’s February 2026 earnings release)
Case years2019–2026 · Evaluation case
Key questionWhat does Uber’s income statement show about how it went from years of losses to an operating profit, and how much of its net income came from its core business?
Business Canvas componentsFinance, Operations
Snapshot
  • Business: Uber Technologies — app-based rides (Mobility), restaurant, grocery, and retail delivery (Delivery), and freight
  • Industry: Technology platform for transportation and delivery
  • Founded: 2009
  • Headquarters: San Francisco, California
  • Key people: Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO
  • Ownership/Status: Public company since May 2019 (NYSE: UBER)

Growth First, Profits Later

Uber was founded in 2009 and is based in San Francisco. Its app connects people who need a ride with drivers, and over time the company added restaurant, grocery, and retail delivery and a freight business that matches shippers with carriers. By the end of 2025, Uber’s technology was available in more than 70 countries, and the company had about 34,000 employees.

For most of its history, Uber was known for losing large amounts of money while it grew. It became a public company in May 2019, and that year it reported a net loss of $8.5 billion. Part of that loss was $3.6 billion of stock-based compensation — the cost of stock awards to employees — that Uber recorded when it went public. The next year, 2020, was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Uber’s revenue fell to $11.1 billion, and it lost another $6.8 billion.

Paper Gains and Paper Losses

Revenue then climbed quickly, to $17.5 billion in 2021 and $31.9 billion in 2022. Part of the 2022 jump came from a change in Uber’s U.K. business: after a court ruling, Uber began counting the entire fare on U.K. rides as revenue, instead of only its commission. Uber’s cost of revenue more than doubled that year as well, from $9.4 billion to $19.7 billion.

During these years, Uber’s bottom line swung for reasons that had little to do with rides or meals. Uber owned stakes in other companies, including Aurora, Didi, Grab, and Zomato, and it recorded gains or losses when the values of those stakes changed. In 2021, Uber lost $3.8 billion from operations, but its net loss was only $496 million. That was partly because it recorded a $1.6 billion gain from selling a business unit called ATG to Aurora, along with large gains on some investments that were partly offset by a $3.0 billion loss on its Didi stake. In 2022, the reverse happened: Uber’s operating loss shrank to $1.8 billion, but its net loss grew to $9.1 billion, mostly because revaluing its investments created a $7.0 billion pre-tax loss.

The Turn: 2023

In 2023, Uber completed 9.4 billion trips — rides plus delivery orders — up 24% from 2022, and revenue rose to $37.3 billion. Total costs grew much more slowly than revenue. Uber actually spent less on sales and marketing (down from $4.8 billion to $4.4 billion) and on general and administrative expenses (down from $3.1 billion to $2.7 billion) than it had the year before. The result was $1.1 billion of income from operations, Uber’s first full-year operating profit. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi put it this way: “2023 was an inflection point for Uber, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale.” Net income was $1.9 billion, a figure that included a $1.6 billion pre-tax gain from higher values of Uber’s investments.

Bigger Profits, Bigger Footnotes

Operating profit kept rising, to $2.8 billion in 2024 and $5.6 billion in 2025. In 2025, Uber completed about 13.6 billion trips, up 20% from 2024, and its revenue rose 18% to $52.0 billion. The total value of the rides, delivery orders, and freight business on Uber’s platform in 2025 was $193.5 billion, a figure Uber calls Gross Bookings. Gross Bookings are much larger than revenue because they count the full value of each ride and delivery order, including the money that goes to drivers and merchants.

Net income looked even more dramatic: $9.9 billion in 2024 and $10.1 billion in 2025. But special items explain much of it. In 2024, net income included a $6.4 billion tax benefit from an accounting step called a valuation allowance release, plus a $1.8 billion pre-tax gain from revaluing investments. In 2025, it included another tax benefit of the same kind, worth $5.0 billion, while investment revaluations caused a small $97 million pre-tax loss. These items boosted net income, but they did not come from rides or deliveries, so they appear below income from operations on the income statement. That is also why Uber’s net income rose only 2% in 2025 even though its income from operations nearly doubled: the 2025 special items were smaller than the 2024 ones.

Planning What Comes Next

Investors care about where Uber is headed, not just where it has been. When it reported its 2025 results in February 2026, Uber forecast Gross Bookings of $52.0 billion to $53.5 billion for the first quarter of 2026. The same release identified Balaji Krishnamurthy as Uber’s incoming chief financial officer, set to succeed CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah. In July 2026, Uber announced a $14.8 billion all-stock deal to buy Delivery Hero, a German food-delivery company; the deal was not yet final at the time. And even after three straight years of operating profit, Uber’s past losses still outweighed its past profits: at the end of 2025, its accumulated deficit was $10.6 billion.

Exhibit 1: Uber’s income statement, 2021–2025 (in millions of dollars)
Line item20212022202320242025
Revenue17,45531,87737,28143,97852,017
Cost of revenue9,35119,65922,45726,65131,338
Operations and support1,8772,4132,6892,7322,854
Sales and marketing4,7894,7564,3564,3374,898
Research and development2,0542,7983,1643,1093,402
General and administrative2,3163,1362,6823,6393,241
Depreciation and amortization902947823711719
Total costs and expenses21,28933,70936,17141,17946,452
Income (loss) from operations(3,834)(1,832)1,1102,7995,565
Net income (loss) attributable to Uber(496)(9,141)1,8879,85610,053

Source: Uber fourth-quarter and full-year earnings releases for 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 (also filed with the SEC). Parentheses mean a loss. Cost of revenue excludes depreciation and amortization, which is listed separately; Uber’s income statement does not show a gross profit line. Between income from operations and net income are interest, other income or expense (including investment gains and losses), and income taxes — including the special items described in the case.

Reading Questions

These are the same for every case. They check that you caught the basics before you analyze.

1. Which business does this case feature, and what product or service does it provide?
The case features Uber Technologies, a San Francisco–based company founded in 2009. Its app connects riders with drivers (Mobility), delivers restaurant, grocery, and retail orders (Delivery), and connects shippers with carriers (Freight). By the end of 2025 it operated in more than 70 countries.
2. Who are the key people named in the case, and what roles do they play? Which other stakeholders — individuals or groups — have an interest in the business?
Dara Khosrowshahi is Uber’s CEO; he called 2023, the year of Uber’s first full-year operating profit, an “inflection point.” Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah was chief financial officer when Uber reported its 2023 and 2025 results, and Balaji Krishnamurthy was identified as the incoming CFO in February 2026. Other stakeholders include riders and delivery customers, drivers and couriers, restaurants and other merchants, shareholders who bought stock after the 2019 IPO, lenders who receive Uber’s interest payments, employees, the companies Uber invested in (Aurora, Didi, Grab, and Zomato), U.K. courts, whose ruling led Uber to change how it counts U.K. revenue, and Delivery Hero and its shareholders.
3. Identify an opportunity and/or a challenge the business faces in this case.
Opportunity: Uber’s platform keeps growing — trips rose 24% in 2023, and revenue climbed from $37.3 billion in 2023 to $52.0 billion in 2025 — and its planned $14.8 billion purchase of Delivery Hero could expand it further. Challenge: Uber spent years losing money, and at the end of 2025 its accumulated deficit was still $10.6 billion. Its net income also swings with items outside its core business, such as investment revaluations and tax benefits, which makes its results harder to judge and to project.

Practice Questions

These apply the Unit 3 concepts from Task 6 to the case, in the style of AP free-response prompts.

1. Identify Uber’s largest cost line in 2025. Then describe how Uber’s income statement moves from revenue to income from operations and then to net income, using 2025 figures from the exhibit and case.Topic 3.6 · LO 3.6.A
Uber’s largest cost line in 2025 was cost of revenue, at $31,338 million (Uber reports this line instead of a cost of goods sold; for a service business, the course calls this cost of sales). Starting with revenue of $52,017 million, Uber subtracts cost of revenue and its operating expenses — operations and support ($2,854 million), sales and marketing ($4,898 million), research and development ($3,402 million), general and administrative ($3,241 million), and depreciation and amortization ($719 million). Total costs and expenses were $46,452 million, leaving income from operations of $5,565 million. Below operating income come interest expense, other income or expense (such as investment gains or losses), and income taxes. Because 2025 taxes included a $5.0 billion tax benefit, net income attributable to Uber ended up at $10,053 million, higher than its operating profit.
2. Calculate Uber’s operating profit margin for 2023 and for 2025, and the percent change in revenue and in total costs and expenses from 2023 to 2025. Explain how these results show why Uber’s operating profit grew.Topic 3.6 · LO 3.6.B
Operating profit margin 2023 = $1,110 ÷ $37,281 × 100 ≈ 3.0%. Operating profit margin 2025 = $5,565 ÷ $52,017 × 100 ≈ 10.7%. Revenue change = ($52,017 − $37,281) ÷ $37,281 × 100 ≈ 39.5%. Total costs and expenses change = ($46,452 − $36,171) ÷ $36,171 × 100 ≈ 28.4%. Because revenue grew faster than costs, each dollar of revenue left more money as operating profit, so the operating margin rose from about 3 cents to almost 11 cents per dollar of revenue. Cost of revenue grew at about the same rate as revenue (from $22,457 million to $31,338 million, about 39.5%), so the improvement came from the other expenses: operations and support, sales and marketing, research and development, general and administrative, and depreciation and amortization together rose only about 10.2% (from $13,714 million to $15,114 million) while revenue rose by about $14.7 billion. Because those costs grew much more slowly than revenue, more of each extra dollar from additional trips and orders flowed through to operating profit.
3. Explain why someone building a projected income statement for Uber should be careful about using Uber’s 2024 net income as a starting point. Use evidence from the case.Topic 3.6 · LO 3.6.C
Uber’s 2024 net income of $9,856 million was more than three times its income from operations of $2,799 million because it included special items: a $6.4 billion tax benefit from a valuation allowance release and a $1.8 billion pre-tax gain from revaluing investments. These items did not come from rides or deliveries, and the tax benefit alone was more than twice Uber’s operating profit. Because such items are not expected to repeat the same way every year — in 2025, investment revaluations turned into a $97 million loss — a projection that starts from 2024 net income would likely overstate Uber’s future profit. A better projection would start from the drivers of the business, such as trips, Gross Bookings, revenue, and operating costs, and then treat special items separately, perhaps with conservative, realistic, and optimistic scenarios. Uber itself forecasts Gross Bookings for upcoming quarters, and an event such as the proposed Delivery Hero deal would also have to be built into any projection.

Discussion Questions

Talk these through with a partner or your class. There's more than one good answer, so back yours up with evidence from the case.

  1. Uber lost billions of dollars a year while its revenue grew. Why might investors have been willing to accept those losses for so long?
  2. Which do you think mattered most to Uber’s first full-year operating profit in 2023? (a) More trips and higher revenue, (b) lower sales and marketing spending, (c) lower general and administrative expenses, or (d) cost of revenue growing more slowly than revenue. Use numbers from the exhibit to defend your choice.
  3. If a news headline about Uber’s 2024 results could report only one number, should it be net income or income from operations? Explain your choice.
  4. Uber reports both Gross Bookings and revenue. What does each tell an investor, and why might a company want to share both?
  5. If you were building Uber’s projected income statement for 2027, what assumptions would you need to make, and which would be hardest to predict?

Application Activity

Create a projected income statement for one month of a small business you could run, such as a dog-walking service or a custom T-shirt shop. Estimate revenue (expected units × price), cost of goods sold or cost of sales, and at least three operating expenses, then calculate gross profit, operating profit, and operating profit margin. Finally, add a one-time item (for example, a $200 prize from a pitch competition) and explain why it should be shown separately when you project the next month.

Key Takeaways

  • An income statement shows performance over a period: revenue minus costs and operating expenses equals income from operations, and interest, other gains or losses, and taxes lead to net income. Uber’s story shows why each line matters.
  • Margins and percent change reveal trends that raw dollars can hide. Uber’s revenue grew faster than its costs, so its operating profit margin rose from about 3.0% in 2023 to about 10.7% in 2025.
  • Net income can swing because of special items such as investment revaluations and tax benefits. When evaluating performance or projecting future income, look at income from operations and the recurring drivers of the business, not just the bottom line.

Use it in your Business Canvas Project

Build a projected income statement for your Business Canvas Project with conservative, realistic, and optimistic revenue scenarios. Like an analyst studying Uber, keep one-time items (such as a grant) separate from recurring revenue so your operating profit shows how the business itself performs.

For Teachers

Opening activity: Ask students: A student-run snack stand sold $500 of snacks this month but spent $600. Next month it sells $1,000 and spends $900. Is it a failing business? Use the discussion to introduce the income statement as a “video” of a business’s revenue and costs over a period of time.

Tip: “Print case” prints the case and all questions with the sample answers hidden, so it works as a student handout.

Sources

  1. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025, Uber Technologies (Business Wire), 2026-02-04
  2. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 (Exhibit 99.1), Uber Technologies via SEC EDGAR, 2025-02-05
  3. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023, Uber Technologies (Business Wire), 2024-02-07
  4. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022, Uber Technologies (Business Wire), 2023-02-08
  5. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 (Exhibit 99.1), Uber Technologies via SEC EDGAR, 2022-02-09
  6. Uber Announces Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 (Exhibit 99.1), Uber Technologies via SEC EDGAR, 2020-02-06
  7. Uber Technologies, Inc. Annual Report (Form 10-K) for 2025, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2026-02
  8. Uber reports first ever full-year operating profit as chief hails an ‘inflection point’, City A.M., 2024-02-07
  9. Uber reveals UK revenue of $983 million as business model change follows court ruling, Evening Standard (via Yahoo Finance), 2022-08-02
  10. Uber’s $14.8B Delivery Hero deal would nearly double its global footprint, TechCrunch, 2026-07-16
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