저자: 미상 · 외국인
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Uber 주가가 테슬라 로보택시 우려로 52주 저점(약 $66, 1년 -20%) 부근. 2026 1분기 총예약 537억달러(+25%), 매출 132억달러(+14%), 잉여현금흐름 23억달러, 최근 12개월 70억달러 이상. 광고매출 10억달러 이상(이익률 70%+). 호출 플랫폼은 북미 점유율 약 70%로 진입장벽 높음. 영상은 Ackman·Klarman의 'Uber 저평가' 논리를 빌려 적정가 약 $92(약 40% 상승 여력) 제시, 로보택시 시대에도 수요 집계자(aggregator) 역할이 유리하다고 주장.
다듬은 글
Hello and welcome back to the channel. So, yesterday I was talking to some investor friends, and honestly, the market has been acting crazy lately because everyone is just crazy about the hype around artificial intelligence. But while most private traders are chasing fresh headlines, legendary hedge fund managers are making huge bets in other areas.
Tesla has been building up hype around its upcoming robotaxi network for months, sending shockwaves through the transportation industry. This fear has pushed Uber shares to a 52- week low of around $66 per share, representing a drop of more than 20% over the past year. However, just two days ago, billionaire Bill Ackman publicly stated that these concerns about Tesla's robo-taxis create a great opportunity to buy Uber shares cheaply.
Ackman's Pershing Square fund owns more than 30 million shares of Uber worth more than $2 billion, making it one of the largest holdings in his portfolio. Meanwhile, value investing titan Seth Klarman of Baupost Group has also begun buying up capital-saving technology platforms that Wall Street is rejecting.
We'll take a closer look at what these investment masters see that the broader market completely misses. A short break, friends . If you haven't noticed yet, I use my digital clone, and I've made it my goal to prove that digital avatars aren't just another low-quality AI content. I always personally research and write these scripts to provide you with the most detailed and objective stock analysis.
Now, to understand why Bill Ackman is so confident, we need to examine Uber's current operating performance. Wall Street often sees ride-hailing services as a declining business , but the real numbers paint a very different picture. In its most recent reporting quarter, Uber reported gross bookings of 53.7 billion, representing a 25% year-over-year increase .
This level of expansion in bookings is impressive for a company operating on such a huge scale . Revenue grew 14% year-on-year, reaching 13.2 billion. Over the past 3 years, Uber has transformed from a cash-burning startup into a true free cash flow generating machine. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, Uber generated $2.3 billion in free cash flow.
This brings cumulative free cash flow over the past 12 months to over $7 billion . Growth is not only due to ride-hailing services. Gross delivery bookings and advertising revenue are growing at double-digit rates. Uber's advertising division now operates with annual revenue of over $1 billion, with a profitability of over 70%.
While the market is completely focused on the future threats from autonomous vehicles , Uber's core platform continues to process millions of transactions every hour. The company has now reported 17 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and five consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability. When you look at these key metrics, it becomes clear that the fundamental dynamics of the business have not slowed down at all.
To properly evaluate the views of Bill Ackman and Seth Klarman, we must consider the broader context of the mobility industry. The global ridesharing market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of over 15% by 2030. In North America, Uber holds a significant market share of around 70%, with Lyft taking the remaining 30%.
This creates a functional duopoly with huge barriers to entry . A new competitor trying to build a rival network would have to spend billions of dollars on driver incentives and passenger discounts just to achieve liquidity. However, market sentiment around ride-hailing services is under pressure from the narrative around autonomous vehicles.
Tesla's announcement of the Cybercab and its ambitions for autonomous ridesharing led many investors to believe that traditional ride-hailing networks would be supplanted. Narrative-driven markets often view technological transitions as “winner-takes- all” scenarios. Wall Street currently views Tesla as the sole beneficiary of autonomous technology, assuming that Tesla will launch its own network and bypass Uber entirely.
But value investors like Ackman and Klarman look at the situation through the lens of structural economics. In any transportation network, there are two separate levels: the supply level and the aggregator level. The supply layer consists of physical vehicles , whether they are driven by humans or run on autonomous software .
The aggregator layer is a demand mechanism that connects passengers with drivers, processes payments, provides customer support, and optimizes routes across city networks. Uber dominates at the aggregator level, with over 150 million monthly active users on the platform. Seth Klarman has repeatedly noted that during technological paradigm shifts, asset-light aggregators with a stable connection to consumers often reap the most lasting economic rent.
Even if companies like Waymo or Lucid create better autonomous cars, they will still need high fleet utilization to justify the capital expenditure. Partnering with Uber’s huge demand base is the fastest path to profitability for any autonomous vehicle operator . Now let's move on to Uber's profitability and cash flow margin, which are key to Bill Ackman's thesis.
Historically, critics have argued that Uber's unit economics were fundamentally flawed, as the company spent more on subsidizing rides than it earned in commissions. But over the past 2 years, Uber has delivered one of the most successful margin expansion stories in today's tech sector. Uber's adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of total bookings has reached 3.9% in recent quarters, up from less than 2 % just two years ago.
Looking at revenue, Uber's operating margin has grown to over 8%. When we look at operating cash flow relative to sales volume, Uber converts approximately 17% of its total revenue directly into operating cash flow. This operating leverage is driven by two main catalysts. First, fixed corporate overhead costs have decreased significantly as a percentage of revenue.
Uber recently implemented an AI-driven restructuring, reducing its support staff by 10% and replacing routine tasks with automated agents powered by generative AI. This initiative is expected to save hundreds of millions of dollars annually while reducing problem resolution time. Secondly, network density plays a vital role in margin growth.
As driver density increases in key metropolitan areas, wait times are reduced and the number of completed trips increases . This allows Uber to reduce friction related to commission rates while increasing marketplace revenue. If you look at cash conversion, Uber has converted over 80% of its adjusted EBITDA into free cash flow over the past four quarters.
This is an exceptional conversion rate for a technology company. Compare this capital-saving efficiency to automakers, which require significant hardware investments . Tesla must spend tens of billions of dollars building factories, manufacturing cars, and installing charging infrastructure. Uber simply charges a platform fee for transactions made using third-party capital.
For value-oriented investors like Ekman and Klarman, a high return on invested capital combined with low capital costs is the hallmark of a business growing on the principle of compound interest. Valuation is where the gap between market narrative and financial reality becomes most apparent. After a 20% drop in shares over the past year, Uber is currently trading at around $66 per share.
At this price, Uber trades at about a multiple of 18 to its GAAP earnings forecast. By comparison, the broader S&P 500 index currently trades at around 22 times forward earnings, while fast- growing high-tech platforms typically trade at 30 to 40 times forward earnings. Uber is growing bookings by more than 20% and profits by more than 30%.
However, the company is trading at a significant discount to the market index. When we analyze the forward price-to- operating cash flow ratio, the valuation looks even more attractive. Uber trades at about a 14-fold forward operating cash flow multiple. Let's do a simple valuation calculation to illustrate why Bill Ackman calls these stocks very cheap.
If we multiply Uber's projected 2026 operating cash flow of approximately $9.2 billion by a moderate multiple of 15, we get an enterprise value of about $138 billion. Subtracting net debt, we get a fair value of equity of about $92 per share. This implies a potential growth of almost 40% from current trading levels.
Now compare this to Tesla's valuation. Tesla currently trades at a multiple of over 100 to projected earnings and around 15 to revenue. For Tesla's valuation to be logical, the market must assume the company's absolute dominance in autonomous robotics, energy storage, and driverless taxis. In contrast, Uber's valuation effectively assumes zero long-term benefit from the development of autonomous vehicles .
In fact, current prices suggest that the market is factoring in a significant destruction in the company's ultimate value due to Tesla's entry into this market. Bill Ackman noted that when a dominant market leader with 30% earnings growth trades at a multiple of 18 to earnings, you are effectively getting the option for autonomous driving for free.
If autonomous taxis succeed, Uber will become more profitable by eliminating the cost of human drivers. If the introduction of autonomous taxis is delayed due to regulatory hurdles, Uber will continue to generate billions in cash flow from its existing network. To understand the full market dynamics, we must weigh both the bearish and bullish scenarios for Uber.
The "bear" thesis is based mainly on the technological displacement of intermediaries and the reduction of margins. Skeptics argue that if Tesla successfully deploys full Autopilot capabilities at scale, it could launch its own ride-hailing app, charging a much lower per-mile fee. Because Tesla owns the hardware, Autopilot software, and charging infrastructure, the bears argue that it will be able to operate at a cost per mile that Uber drivers cannot compete with.
In addition, the bears are concerned about regulatory resistance in key markets, rising insurance costs, and potential driver classification requirements in municipalities such as New York or California. If Uber is forced to pay higher social security contributions for drivers and simultaneously faces low-cost autonomous competition, its profit margins could shrink sharply.
Instead, the “bullish” thesis advocated by Ackman and Klarman focuses on network effects, neutrality towards partners, and the durability of cash flows. The “ bullish” argument emphasizes that creating software for autonomous cars is only half the battle. Managing local demand spikes, optimizing fleet routes, providing localized customer service, and maintaining high levels of vehicle usage in varying weather conditions require specialized market infrastructure.
Rather than fighting Uber, drone developers like Waymo, Avride, and Lucid/Nuro are actively partnering with Uber to gain access to its existing customer base. Deploying a fleet of autonomous vehicles without a well-established demand generation system leads to idle vehicles, which seriously destroys the fleet's economics.
Additionally, autonomous vehicles face serious regulatory and geographic limitations. Full-scale deployment in major metropolitan areas will take years, if not decades. During this multi-year transition, Uber operates a hybrid network where human drivers fill supply gaps in difficult suburban areas or during bad weather, while drones service dense urban corridors.
This hybrid capability makes Uber an indispensable partner for any autonomous car manufacturer seeking immediate revenue. Ultimately, while Wall Street is trading on short-term fears surrounding Tesla's announcements, experienced value investors are looking at a stable market economy, strong cash flow, and attractive valuation multiples.
Hi, thanks for watching, and I sincerely respect every viewer who takes the time to seek out objective , data-driven analysis .
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