Uber only uses subsidies when trying to break into new markets to expand. If they stopped expanding, they would become profitable rather quickly.
Many of their losses were due to the turf war in china, which is now over. They have a 20% stake in Didi now, which will almost certainly recover their losses.
>> Uber only uses subsidies when trying to break into new markets to expand. If they stopped expanding, they would become profitable rather quickly.
Are you sure that's true? That sounds like the marketing speak that Travis K. spouts, but I wouldn't be surprised if that weren't the whole truth. Like any other "startup", you can claim to be profitable pretty easily -- you just have to find a hand-wavy way to qualify that ("if you exclude debt and operating expenses we're net margin profitable!").
Many of their losses were due to the turf war in china, which is now over. They have a 20% stake in Didi now, which will almost certainly recover their losses.