Uber shares falter on debut, open below IPO price

The much-awaited Uber Technologies shares stumbled on its debut on Friday with the share price opening below the IPO price level set by the company.

The shares started trading at $42 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), 6.66 per cent lower than its Initial Public Offering (IPO) price of $45 per share.

Facing a turbulent time at its drivers' end, Uber priced its IPO at $45 per share with an aim to raise $8.1 billion.

Uber's market cap was around $74 billion when its shares started to trade on NYSE.

In its IPO filing in April, the company had warned that it may never make profits as its operating expenses are likely to increase "significantly in the foreseeable future".

"We have incurred significant losses since inception, including in the United States and other major markets. We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, and we may not achieve profitability," the company said in the "S-1" form or the IPO Prospectus submitted to the Securities and Exchanges Commission last month.

The company registered $11.3 billion in revenue for 2018, up 43 per cent from 2017. It adjusted losses of $1.8 billion, an improvement over losses of $2.6 billion in 2017, according to its IPO filing.

As of December 31, 2018, it had 91 million, or 9.1 crore, monthly active platform users. There were 3.9 million, or 39 lakh, drivers on the platform by the end of 2018.

Uber drivers in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, London and Tokyo joined a global strike and logged off from the app as they cash incentives have considerably gone down while work hours have gone up.

Meanwhile, Uber made its debut in the stock market at a time when the US-China trade tensions hampered equity markets across the globe and more so in the US.

--IANS

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