Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is stunned by $51.69 price of three-mile ride in NYC on quiet weekday morning

Uber's CEO was left stunned that a three-mile ride across New York City cost $51.69 on a quiet weekday morning – as profits for the ride-share soar amid rising prices.

Dara Khosrowshahi guessed that the trip from downtown Manhattan to the West Side would have cost around $20 – less than half of the actual price.

He had been meeting with Wired editor Steven Levy in May, when he was asked to guess the cost of the trip, and was horrified when he estimated wrong.

Khosrowshahi blamed 'surge pricing' on the spike in the fee, before adding 'everything is more expensive' – claiming that inflation has caused the rates to go up.

It comes after Uber posted its first-ever operating profit, and made a record number of trips, second quarter numbers show.

Dara Khosrowshahi guessed that the trip from downtown Manhattan to the West Side would have cost around $20 – less than half of the actual price

Revenue grew 14 percent year-on-year to $9.2bn, while costs climbed only about 2 percent, according to Uber's reports

The numbers have been long-awaited by the ride-share company, after racking up a whopping $31billion in operating losses since 2009.

Between April to June this year the company posted a profit of $326m, compared with a loss of $713m in 2022.

Operating profits came in at $326 million for the quarter — the first profitable quarter since Uber's founding in 2009. 

Revenue grew 14 percent year-on-year to $9.2bn, while costs climbed only about 2 percent, according to Uber's reports.

Speaking on the profits, Khosrowshahi said: 'For most of our history, 'profitable' wasn't the first thing that came up when you asked someone about Uber. But we knew they were wrong.'

But a report by Forbes revealed that prices for Uber in the US has increased at four times the rate of inflation from 2018 to 2022.

Fares rose a total of 83 percent over the nearly four years ending in Q3 of 2022, with the CEO previously claiming that the surge was due to a shortage of drivers in the pandemic.

But Uber has since recruited aggressively.  

The companies Q2 report in 2022 revealed that Uber reached a record-high 5 million drivers in August 2022 — up 31 percent from the year prior, the company noted in its Q2 2022 earnings report.

Between April to June this year the company posted a profit of $326m, compared with a loss of $713m in 2022

Speaking on the profits, Khosrowshahi said: 'For most of our history, 'profitable' wasn't the first thing that came up when you asked someone about Uber. But we knew they were wrong'

The company predicts it will see additional operating profits by the end of Q3, on September 30.

Reports showed that revenue rose 14 percent year-over-year, to $9.2 billion, and total transactions on its app grew 16 percent from 2022, to $33.6 billion.

But despite the first profit being made since 2014, the stock for the company fell nearly 6 percent Tuesday.

Uber warned that its rival Lyft was competing effectively on prices and set an earnings forecast that analysts said may have disappointed investors who drove up the stock twice this year. 

Lyft's aggressive pricing was threatening to ramp up competition after months of what could be described as a 'cooperative duopoly', CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino said.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, called Lyft a 'tough competitor', adding: 'They've (Lyft) taken some tough actions, and they are competitive in pricing now.'

Uber reported a profit of 18 cents per share, while analysts were expecting a loss of 1 cent.

The company also announced that Uber's chief financial officer, Nelson Chai, will leave the company on January 5, 2024, and 'a search for his replacement is underway.'

Chai, who stepped into the role in 2018, led Uber's initial public offering in 2019, and oversaw the company's $2.65 billion acquisition of Postmates in an all-stock deal in 2020.