San Francisco, Feb 14 (IANS): Ride-hailing major Uber on Wednesday announced it will buy back company shares worth up to $7 billion after strong recovery in business last year.

The Board of Directors has authorised the repurchase of up to $7 billion of the company’s common stock, Uber said in a statement.

“Today’s authorisation of our first-ever share repurchase programme is a vote of confidence in the company’s strong financial momentum,” said Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, Uber CFO.

“We will be thoughtful as it relates to the pace of our buyback, beginning with actions that partially offset stock-based compensation, and working towards a consistent reduction in share count,” Mahendra-Rajah added.

In its fourth quarter that ended December 31, 2023, Uber’s gross bookings grew 22 per cent year-over-year to $37.6 billion, with mobility gross bookings of $19.3 billion and delivery gross bookings of $17 billion.

Trips during the quarter grew 24 per cent (on-year) to 2.6 billion, or approximately 28 million trips per day on average.

Revenue grew 15 per cent YoY to $9.9 billion and combined mobility and delivery revenue grew 22 per cent YoY to $8.7 billion.

“2023 was an inflection point for Uber, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO.

“Our audiences are larger and more engaged than ever, with our platform powering an average of nearly 26 million daily trips last year,” he had said in a statement.