Uber has announced its first full-year profit after bookings rose by more than a fifth in the last three months of 2023 and since it floated on the stock market five years ago.

It's been a long road to real profits, after many years and billions of cumulative losses for the ride-sharing and food delivery company

Uber figures from the fourth quarter in 2023 showed that delivery revenue grew 6% and revenue for the ride-share part of the business rose by 34%.

Beating analyst forecasts, revenue totalled $9.94bn/ £7.87bn and gross bookings grew by 22% from the prior-year period to $37.6bn/£29.8bn.

For the full year ending December 31, 2023, Uber posted a profit of $1.89bn on revenue of $37.28bn / £29.5bn.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO, said: "2023 was an inflection point for Uber, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale. Our audiences are larger and more engaged than ever, with our platform powering an average of nearly 26 million daily trips last year."

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, CFO at Uber, said: "Uber's platform advantages and disciplined investment in new growth opportunities resulted in record engagement and accelerating gross bookings in Q4."

Uber has focused on cutting costs and building up its food-delivery division, which has since become a major revenue stream.

Looking forward to Q1 2024, the firm predicts gross bookings of $37.0bn to $38.5bn.