The little, mobile car-hailing company that just a year ago was something most of your friends probably hadn't heard of is now on track to make about $210 million in revenue this year according to a Valleywag estimate. The rough figure is based on a leaked revenue report for October and November, via an Uber employee, and shows that the company is doing far better than projections made just a few months ago.
Uber has so far expanded to 29 U.S. markets, including places like Tucson and Santa Barbara where we had no idea people were having trouble hailing cabs in places like Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, however, this service has been a godsend beyond measure, because these have traditionally been places where finding a quick and easy cab is near impossible. But, we suppose, none of us likes to pick up the phone anymore, and the easy of use of Uber is appealing to drunk people everywhere who need to get home. (They're also now boasting being in 22 countries, including Canada, Mexico, and Colombia, though it looks like some of those markets have yet to launch.)
The report shows that the company has been averaging about 79,000 new signups per week in the last couple months, and boasts an impressive 450,000 or so active users. The number of completed rides rose from 720,000 per week in mid-October to 863,000 per week in mid-November.
If Valleywag's estimate is correct, the company is going to come in way above the $125 million revenue figure for 2013 that they projected for investors back in August.
Meanwhile, the company is rumored to be "building its own fleet of cars [with the intention of] monopolizing the car-for-hire market" and basically become its own nationwide cab company. That, of course, would be a far different business model than the mobile-app-based middleman service they're running now, and it remains to be seen if they can pull it off.
They also could be contemplating a host of other delivery services, like their Christmas tree gambit this week. As Bloomberg surmised this week, "Uber is a cross between lifestyle and logistics. Lifestyle is gimme what I want and give it to me right now and logistics is physically delivering it to the person that wants it ... once you're delivering cars in five minutes, there's a lot of things you can deliver in 5 minutes."
