$Uber(UBER)$ the motly fool

1. Uber's mobility business has roared back to life

Uber's bread and butter has always been mobility (ride-hailing), but the company has never been scared to conquer new verticals. Its Uber Eats food-delivery platform is now one of the largest in the world, and it carried the entire company through the pandemic as social restrictions destroyed demand for mobility services. And now, its Uber Freight platform is growing like a weed with significant long-term promise.

Let's begin there, because in the third quarter, Uber's freight segment grew a mind-boggling 336%. Not so long ago, it was an inconsequential contributor to the company's overall financial results, but it just generated $1.8 billion in quarterly revenue following Uber's acquisition of Transplace in Nov. 2021. Uber says the platform now has over 200,000 users and manages $17 billion in freight, making it one of the largest logistics networks in the world already.

But the headline in the third quarter was mobility, because the segment continued its resurgence back to the top spot as Uber's largest driver of revenue. Revenue came in at $3.8 billion with a little help from an accounting adjustment relating to its operations in the United Kingdom. But its gross bookings (the amount of money customers spent on the service) came in level with food delivery at $13.7 billion.

Its bookings growth rate, however, was 45% compared to delivery's 13%, suggesting mobility could already be the dominant driver of bookings in the current quarter.

Uber now has a record-high 124 million customers across all of its platforms, which was a 14% year-over-year increase. But the company says mobility customers specifically grew 22%, highlighting a return to normal now that most pandemic restrictions have been lifted.

Uber stock is down 36% in 2022. But its business is very much on the upswing, and investors might view that disparity as an opportunity to buy. Some of the pressures on the broader economy like inflation, appear to have peaked, so the new year could be more favorable to tech stocks like Uber.