Uber Freight still unprofitable after big revenue jump

There were positives in Uber Freight's earnings even as its losses continued.

There were positives in Uber Freight's earnings even as its losses continued. (Photo: Jim Allen\FreightWaves)

Uber Freight had a significant jump in revenue not only on a year-on-year basis but sequentially as well.

However, it only moderately improved its bottom line performance, which remains solidly as a negative number.

Uber Freight’s revenue for the second quarter was $1.583 billion. That is up 25% from a year ago and 18.3% sequentially.

Uber (NYSE: UBER), in its earnings and on its conference call with analysts, made no comment about the performance at Uber Freight. Its slide presentation for analysts only had basic financial data.

But what was provided did have some positive news besides the revenue growth.

Uber as a whole and by extension Uber Freight individually changed its financial reporting starting this year by reporting segment operating income rather than EBITDA. Outside of a few quarters when Uber Freight was breakeven or barely profitable under EBITDA, the digital brokerage and shipper TMS provider through the acquisition of Transplace in 2021 has been unprofitable.

That did not change in the latest report. Uber Freight’s operating income was negative $24 million for the quarter. The last five quarters of data show operating income, starting with the second quarter of 2025, as negative $26 million, negative $40 million, negative $18 million, negative $30 million followed by the latest report.

But one positive is that the company’s operating income as a percentage of gross bookings edged up to 1.5% from 2.2% in the first quarter. A year ago it was 2.1%. The final quarter of 2025 recorded a margin of 1.4%.

Compared to other public 3PLs, Uber Freight outperformed or tied them in terms of revenue growth. RXO (NYSE: RXO) recorded about a 25% growth in the top line, similar to Uber Freight. But Landstar (NASDAQ: LSTR) was 18.2% and C.H. Robinson (NASDAQ: CHRW) was 19.3%.

One positive for Uber Freight is that its operating income as a percentage of gross bookings edged up to negative 1.5% from negative 2.2% in the first quarter. A year ago it was negative 2.1%. The final quarter of 2025 recorded a margin of negative 1.4%.

As Transplace’s operations have become a bigger share of total Uber Freight revenue, the company does not break out any sort of division between legacy Uber Freight and legacy Transplace. But with almost five years since the acquisition, sources say there has been an increasing amount of intertwining between the two, making such an effort at segregating revenue and income pointless.

However, a 25% growth in revenue does not come from a surge in sales of a TMS platform like Transplace; it would presumably come from a brokerage riding higher market rates.

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John Kingston

John has an almost 50-year career as a journalist, most of them covering commodities and markets. The largest part of his career was spent at Platts, now part of S&P Global Energy. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment. He was awarded the 2020 Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Energy Award for Lifetime Achievement for the Advancement of International Energy Journalism.