Update, August 3, 2026: this preview treats margin expansion as something to watch for, and it had already happened. In the quarter tabulated below as "Q1 2026 (last reported)", Uber's gross margin broke an eleven-quarter band by 5.5 points — a move this piece carries no line for. We covered it separately, including the part that matters most: most of the step is a UK accounting change effective January 2, 2026, not operating leverage. Read that before treating the ads-driven margin framing below as the open question.
Uber has confirmed it will report second-quarter 2026 results on August 5, 2026, with a conference call at 5:00 a.m. PT / 8:00 a.m. ET. The report lands as the stock trades around $70, well below the roughly $105 average analyst price target, even as the underlying business keeps compounding: record free cash flow, an advertising unit that's scaled past a $2 billion run-rate, and an increasingly aggressive multi-partner autonomous-vehicle strategy.
The Headline Numbers Going In
| Metric | Q1 2026 (last reported) | Q2 2025 (year-ago) | Analyst estimate for Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $13.20B | $12.65B | Not yet widely published |
| Gross Bookings | $53.7B (+25% YoY) | — | — |
| GAAP Diluted EPS | $0.13 | $0.63 | — |
| Non-GAAP EPS | $0.72 (+44% YoY) | — | ~$0.84 (+33% YoY est.) |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $2.5B (+33% YoY) | — | — |
Uber's GAAP EPS has been genuinely hard to read quarter to quarter. Q3 2025's $3.11 was inflated by a $4.9 billion tax-valuation-allowance release; Q4 2025's $0.14 and Q1 2026's $0.13 were both dragged down by roughly $1.5-1.6 billion pre-tax headwinds from marking Uber's equity stakes (Aurora, Didi, and other self-driving/ride-hailing investments) to market. Strip that noise out and the underlying trend is Uber's actual operating story: non-GAAP EPS growing 44% year-over-year in Q1 2026, adjusted EBITDA up 33%, and free cash flow at record levels — $9.8 billion for full-year 2025, up 42% YoY.
What to Watch
- Whether GAAP EPS stays noisy again. With billions of dollars in equity stakes across Aurora, Didi, Grab, and various AV partners, another large mark-to-market swing — in either direction — is entirely plausible and could make the headline EPS number misleading relative to the operating business.
- Advertising run-rate. Uber's ad business crossed a $2 billion annualized run-rate in Q4 2025, up more than 50% YoY, already exceeding the roughly 2%-of-gross-bookings ceiling some analysts once assumed. Whether that growth rate holds is a real swing factor for margin expansion.
- Autonomous vehicle partnership updates. Uber has committed roughly $10 billion as investor and demand-side partner across about 30 self-driving companies — Waymo, Nuro/Lucid, Momenta, WeRide, and others — rather than building its own robotaxi. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has targeted robotaxi service in 10-15+ countries by the end of 2026; any concrete rollout news (new cities, new partners, or delays) will move the stock.
- Gross bookings growth durability. Q1 2026's 25% YoY growth to $53.7 billion was strong; a deceleration would raise questions about Mobility/Delivery demand as macro conditions evolve.
- Guidance for Q3 2026 and any commentary on competitive dynamics with Lyft, Waymo's own consumer-facing robotaxi expansion, and Tesla's robotaxi ambitions.
The Bottom Line
Uber goes into its August 5 print as a company whose underlying fundamentals — record free cash flow, accelerating high-margin advertising revenue, and a genuinely differentiated "picks-and-shovels-plus-demand-aggregator" position in the autonomous-vehicle race — look considerably stronger than its noisy GAAP earnings per share would suggest. The stock's roughly 45% gap to the average analyst price target reflects either skepticism that the AV bet will pay off as cleanly as bulls hope, or an opportunity, depending on how Q2 2026 numbers land. Either way, the headline EPS number on August 5 will need to be read alongside gross bookings growth, advertising run-rate, and adjusted EBITDA to know whether the quarter was actually good.
Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) last reported Q1 2026 results on May 6, 2026: revenue of $13.20 billion, GAAP diluted EPS of $0.13 (weighed down by equity-investment revaluations), and non-GAAP EPS of $0.72 (+44% YoY). Shares currently trade around $70. Q2 2026 results are scheduled for August 5, 2026.