Uber continues its recovery from the pandemic lull but loses $5.6 billion from investments.

Uber, which had already been spending closely to lure again drivers who left early within the pandemic, responded in March by charging riders a small gas payment for every journey, which went to drivers, and stated on Wednesday that it had extra drivers on its platform than at any time for the reason that pandemic started.

That confidence — and its rosy outlook for the subsequent quarter — differed starkly from its rival Lyft, which reported monetary outcomes on Tuesday and noticed its inventory plunge 25 % in after-hours buying and selling after firm executives stated on an earnings name that they had been nonetheless struggling to influence drivers to return to the platform and could be spending more cash to incentivize them to take action.

Uber’s shares fell together with Lyft’s, and Uber stated shortly after that it will launch its monetary outcomes hours sooner than initially deliberate on Wednesday, seemingly in an try and differentiate its outcomes from Lyft’s and pre-empt a drop in its inventory when the market opened later that morning. Uber’s inventory, although, was down about 8 % in pre-market buying and selling.

On a name with traders Wednesday, Mr. Khosrowshahi acknowledged that Uber additionally wanted to proceed to extend the variety of drivers on its platform. However he painted an optimistic image of the corporate’s enterprise by pointing to areas of potential development, like Uber’s partnerships with taxi firms and its investments within the freight business.

“There’s lots of work to do forward of us, however it is a machine that’s rolling,” he stated of the availability of drivers, including that Uber was “beginning to present separation in opposition to our opponents.”

Although Lyft stated the variety of energetic drivers within the first three months of the yr grew 40 % in contrast with the quantity from the identical time final yr, Logan Inexperienced, the corporate’s chief government, additionally stated that drivers had “signed off” throughout Omicron and had but to return within the numbers wanted to fulfill rebounding demand.

Lyft reported better-than-expected income, $876 million, a 44 % improve from the primary quarter of 2021, and $197 million in internet loss, a 54 % lower from final yr. The corporate had 17.8 million energetic riders, up from 13.5 million initially of final yr however down from the practically 19 million it reported towards the tip of 2021.