08:32 AM EDT, 05/08/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Uber Technologies ( UBER ) reported an unexpected first-quarter loss on Tuesday weighed down by its equity investments, while the ride hailing company's gross bookings fell short of analysts' estimates.

The company posted a net loss of $0.32 a share for the March quarter, widening from a $0.08 loss the year before. The consensus on Capital IQ was for per-share earnings of $0.22. The result included a pretax headwind of $721 million mainly tied unrealized losses on Uber's ( UBER ) equity investments.

Shares of the company fell 7.5% in recent premarket activity.

Revenue advanced 15% to $10.13 billion, just above the Street's view for $10.09 billion. "Certain business model changes, which have no impact on profitability, negatively impacted revenue reporting by $742 million," Chief Financial Officer Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah said in a statement. "We expect to lap the majority of these business model changes in the second half of this year."

Gross bookings jumped 20% to $37.65 billion, but were below the consensus on Visible Alpha for $38.02 billion. Mobility bookings surged 25% during the quarter and delivery improved by 18%. Freight bookings, however, declined 8% to $1.28 billion.

"We landed just shy of our guidance midpoint, with softer mobility activity in (Latin America) as we lapped heightened demand during Carnival last year, coupled with the impact of holidays shifting into (the first quarter) of this year," according to Mahendra-Rajah. Trips grew 21% to 2.57 billion on a yearly basis while monthly active platform consumers increased 15% to 149 million.

For the current quarter, Uber ( UBER ) anticipates gross bookings to be in a range of $38.75 billion to $40.25 billion, reflecting annual growth of 18% to 23% on a constant currency basis. The outlook reflects a 3% currency headwind to reported growth. Analysts on Visible Alpha currently project gross bookings of $40.12 billion.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization is set to come in between $1.45 billion and $1.53 billion for the second quarter. In the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA jumped 82% to $1.38 billion.

Price: 65.13, Change: -5.30, Percent Change: -7.53