Uber’s food-delivery business should show strain from the historic inflation hammering the U.S. when the company posts its quarterly earnings this week.
As Reuters reported Monday (Aug. 1), analysts expect the company to report second-quarter revenue of $7.39 billion, an 88.2% increase from the second quarter of 2021.
The report noted that Uber has enjoyed a surge in global travel and a reopening of offices recently, although that could be dampened by a downturn in its food-delivery operations. Uber is set to report its earnings Tuesday, with results from rival Lyft scheduled for Thursday.
“Investors have written off food delivery as the next shoe to drop as consumers tighten up their wallets,” Bernstein analyst Nikhil Devnani told Reuters.
He noted the fate of British food delivery platform Deliveroo, which cut its annual revenue forecast in July amid a rising cost of living.
Read more: 6 in 10 Consumers Buying Only the Essentials as Inflation Rises
And MKM Partners analyst Rohit Kulkarni said that although ride-sharing has rebounded this year, the industry could face pressure from a potential driver shortage due to high gas prices.
PYMNTS reported on the decline in digital ordering earlier this year in the study “ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: 3 Ways Consumers Are Dealing With Inflation.”
The study found that 46% of consumers placed restaurant orders online in March, down 2% from the previous month and down 7% from January when COVID-19 numbers were surging due to the outbreak of the omicron variant, which could inflate the month’s numbers.
See also: Uber Eats Boosts Grocery Delivery With Off-Hours Shopping
Last month, Uber announced what it called a “new grocery experience” that includes adding the option for consumers to order groceries outside of store hours to make it easier for customers to work online grocery shopping into their daily routines.
“My experience over the past few years has started to make me … ask why it is that, in the past, the paradigms we’re stuck with in terms of being able to, for example, shop for groceries, always involve a constraint instead of a possibility,” Therese Lim, senior director of new verticals and grocery product at Uber, said during a Zoom presentation.
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