Consumer Discretionary

Uber Technologies (UBER) topped Wall Street expectations on most measures when it reported its Q1 results earlier this week and the ride-hailing company is poised to to catch up and eventually surpass many of its peers over the next year and beyond, BofA Securities said Thursday in a research note. Uber took a 6% hit during Wednesday trading after reporting an unexpected Q1 net loss, but the BoA analysts hardly mentioned the earnings miss, instead focusing on metrics like bookings, revenue and free cash flow growth. By those measures, the company was rolling along well, they said, writing Thursday Uber shares are now “attractively valued.” BoA Securities also lowered its price target for Uber shares to $87 from $91 previously to reflect a small discount for the company to the so-called FANG stocks – Facebook (META); Amazon.com (AMZN); Netflix (NFLX) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) – setting the pace for consumer-oriented

Uber’s new partnership with Instacart, which allows customers to order Uber Eats-fetched food via the Instacart app, adds a “very high-quality and highly targeted suburban audience” to the Uber Eats ecosystem and for the company’s merchants, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says on a call with analysts. The additional demand from these new high-end consumers is going to be welcomed by the merchants and increase penetration with Dominos and other merchants in the suburbs, the CEO says. Shares slide 6% to $66.21.

Uber’s gross bookings, or the value of transactions on its app, were up 20% at $37.65B in 1Q but missed analyst projections. The number of app users increased 15% during the quarter and frequency of use increased 6%, but pricing was relatively flat, CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah says on a call with analysts, adding that the company expects to see similar trends in 2Q. Uber’s 2Q guidance includes a 5 percentage point headwind to gross bookings in its ride-hailing business from forex changes related to the Argentine peso, the CFO says.

Uber Technologies’ (UBER) underlying business continues to be “healthy,” even as the ride-hailing company posted mixed Q1 financial results, Wedbush Securities said Wednesday. The company’s Q1 net loss widened year-over-year to $0.32 per share from $0.08 per share, while revenue grew 15% to $10.13 billion. Analysts polled by Capital IQ expected EPS of $0.22 on revenue of $10.09 billion. The company’s shares were down over 7% in recent trading. “We think investor expectations have gotten ahead of the stock following the company’s analyst day in mid-February,” Wedbush analysts, including Daniel Ives, said in a note. Markets and investors likely also overlooked recent currency headwinds, they said. Wedbush reiterated its outperform rating on the Uber stock, saying the company continues to be “the dominant global mobility and delivery platform with multiple drivers of long-term growth.”

We cut our 12-month target to $81 from $93 on a P/E of 35x our 2025 EPS (18x our 2025 FCF). We cut our 2024 EPS to $1.00 from $2.22 and 2025’s to $2.32 from $3.63. Gross bookings grew 20%, led by strong growth in Mobility (+26%) and Delivery (+18%). Trips grew 21%, driven by a 15% rise in MAPC and a 6% uptick in frequency (trips/MAPC). Despite top-line strength, net loss widened to $654M (LPS of $0.31 vs. $0.08) due to a $72M unrealized loss from equity investment reevaluation. Yet, UBER demonstrated operating leverage, with 82% growth in adj-EBITDA to $1.4B and $4.2B trailing-12-month FCF generation. Key growth drivers include UberOne’s 45% penetration of delivery of gross bookings, new affordable offerings like Moto and Xshare for volume, and grocery growth. We also like Instacart’s partnership expanding consumer reach, complementing geographic expansion and multi-product portfolio. UBER’s geographic expansion, new user