LONDON. TfL consult on whether to remove Rate 3 from Meter.

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Uber Technologies, Inc. is taking heavy losses this year. Bloomberg has reported some of the numbers that come from sources involved in the company's quarterly financial conference call with Gautam Gupta, the organization's head of finance, and the figures are shocking!

The company lost approximately $520 million in the first quarter of this year, although it earned a profit in the United States market. But that bright spot was eliminated in the second quarter.

Investors learned on the recent call that Uber had lost an additional $750 million in the second quarter, with $100 million of that coming from the U.S. All told, the company has lost over $1.2 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg.

These growing losses come in spite of increasing revenue as the year has gone on. Uber had about $3.8 billion in bookings in the first quarter, which increased to about $5 billion in the second. The net revenue went up by about $50 million from one quarter to the next, from around $960 million to around $1.1 billion. Still, the losses mount.

In fact, the seven-year-old company has lost about $4 billion in its short history, including about $2 billion in 2015 alone.

Joe Grundfest, professor of law and business at Stanford, weighed in on the matter:

"It's hardly rare for companies to lose large sums of money as they try to build significant markets and battle for market share. The interesting challenge is for them to turn the corner to become profitable, cash-flow-positive entities."

https://goo.gl/Chb4EX

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MONTREAL – Many taxi drivers in several Quebec cities went on strike Wednesday to protest the provincial government’s deal with Uber.

The cabbies were asking to meet with Premier Philippe Couillard over what they called a two-tier system that favours the ride-hailing company.

“What (the agreement) is saying is, ‘we’re creating an open market authorizing Uber to work without legislation, without rules and regulations,'” taxi industry spokesman Benoit Jugand told reporters in Montreal. “And we have the taxi industry that needs to work with all those regulations.”

In an open letter to Couillard, industry representatives argued the government should buy back the drivers’ costly taxi permits, which cost them upward of $200,000 if a car is included in the price.

The government’s one-year pilot project will allow Uber to legally operate in the province as of Oct. 14.

Under the agreement, Uber drivers won’t have to rent or purchase traditional permits, but will collect federal and provincial sales tax and contribute to a fund to help modernize the taxi industry.

On Wednesday afternoon, traffic on some Montreal streets slowed to a crawl as taxi drivers protested in two separate downtown demonstrations and loudly honked their horns.

Jugand said drivers were “angry” because their expensive taxi permits will lose much of their value once the market is opened.

“Now they’re going to lose all their money,” he said. “That’s a clear message the premier is sending to all those people.”

On Monday, Couillard reiterated that the pilot project would go ahead despite the objections of the taxi industry.

Taxi industry representatives said Wednesday they still want to meet him because the transport minister hadn’t been given a mandate to negotiate with them.

Previously, the taxi industry unsuccessfully tried to stop the pilot project by legal means.

The last attempt ended in late September, when a judge ruled there were no compelling reasons to prevent Uber from going ahead with the project.

https://goo.gl/vdAqtO