10:36 AM EST, 02/05/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Uber Technologies ( UBER ) issued a downbeat first-quarter gross bookings outlook at the midpoint on Wednesday despite reporting a surprise increase in earnings in the preceding three-month period.

The ride-hailing company's gross bookings are anticipated to be in a range of $42 billion to $43.5 billion for the first quarter of 2025, implying annual growth of 17% to 21% on a constant-currency basis. The guidance range's midpoint of $42.75 billion fell short of the current FactSet-polled consensus of $43.48 billion, according to MT Newswires' calculations. The stock fell 7.8% in Wednesday trade.

The outlook for the key metric assumes a currency headwind of roughly 5.5 percentage points to total reported annual growth, the company said. "For perspective, at the (fourth quarter of 2024) exchange rates, our (first quarter of 2025) reported gross bookings outlook range would have been nearly $1 billion higher," Chief Financial Officer Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah said in prepared remarks. "This also reflects the effect of lapping leap day in (the first quarter of 2024) and the impact of the Los Angeles fires and extreme weather in January."

In the December quarter, gross bookings rose to nearly $44.2 billion from $37.58 billion the year before, ahead of the Street's view for $43.48 billion. "Record demand in both mobility and delivery helped us grow gross bookings faster than the high end of our guidance," Mahendra-Rajah said in a statement. Mobility and delivery gross bookings improved 18% each on a year-over-year basis, while freight remained nearly flat, according to the company.

Uber's ( UBER ) net income came in at $3.21 a share for the quarter, up from $0.66 in the prior-year period and sharply above the average analyst estimate of $0.50. The result included a $6.4 billion benefit from a tax valuation release and a pretax benefit of $556 million mainly due to unrealized gains related to the revaluation of the company's equity investments. Revenue advanced 20% year over year to $11.96 billion, topping the Street's forecast for $11.76 billion.

Trips increased 18% year over year to 3.07 billion while monthly active platform consumers climbed 14% to 171 million, the company said.

"Uber ( UBER ) ended 2024 with our strongest quarter ever, as growth accelerated across (monthly active platform consumers), trips and gross bookings," Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in the statement. "We enter 2025 with clear momentum and will continue to be relentless against our long-term strategy."

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization is pegged to come in between $1.79 billion and $1.89 billion for the current quarter, Uber ( UBER ) said. In the December quarter, adjusted EBITDA soared to $1.84 billion from $1.28 billion a year ago.

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