(NYSE Photo)

Update: Uber’s stock closed Friday at $41.57, down 7.6 percent. 

Uber made its long-awaited debut on the stock market Friday morning, but its stock opened at $42 per share, below its original pricing of $45.

Uber is the headliner of an IPO blitz in 2019 that also includes competitor Lyft. Uber’s IPO has been anticipated for months, but its public debut fell short of the hype. The company went with a more conservative initial pricing on the low-end of its $44 to $50 range, but shares fell below that as trading began.

Uber’s is one of the biggest public debuts in recent history, with the ride-hailing giant raising approximately $8.1 billion at a valuation of $82 billion. Per MarketWatch, Uber’s IPO raise is the most since Facebook went public in 2012.

RELATED: Inside Uber’s growing Seattle engineering outpost

Like many of the other IPO-bound big names from Silicon Valley, Uber is not profitable but is growing fast. Under the leadership of former Expedia chief Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber has staked out an interesting position as the leader in the ride-hailing industry but also as a potential competitor to Amazon in freight logistics and food delivery.

It’ll be interesting to see if Uber’s debut differs from rival Lyft. Lyft’s stock shot up out of the gate before dropping during the day and ultimately ending up 8.7 percent. But since then, Lyft’s stock has dropped 35 percent.

Here are a few of the key metrics that came out of Uber’s IPO documents:

  • The ride-hailing giant reported $11.27 billion in revenue in 2018, up 42 percent over the prior year.
  • Uber finished 2018 with $49.8 billion in gross bookings, the total spent across the company’s various platforms, up 44 percent from a year ago.
  • Uber reported net income of $997 million in 2018, but an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.85 billion.
  • Uber reported 91 million monthly active consumers on its platform at the end of 2018, up 34 percent over the year before.
  • Uber had 3.9 million drivers on its platform at the end of the year, and they completed 1.5 billion trips in the fourth quarter.

Uber’s IPO comes at a time of shaky relationships with its huge network of independent contractor drivers. On Wednesday, drivers around the world protested declining rates and a lack of transparency from Uber in how the company calculates their pay.

As lawmakers push minimum wage rules for drivers, Uber is warning investors of major risks that could come with any changes to the independent contractor status.

“Any such reclassification would require us to fundamentally change our business model, and consequently have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition,” according to the company’s IPO filings.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.