Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, 20 December

• Uber's Loss Exceeds $800 Million in Third Quarter on $1.7 Billion in Net Revenue: Even as Uber Technologies Inc. exited China, the company's financial loss has remained eye-popping. In the first nine months of this year, the ride-hailing company lost significantly more than $2.2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. In the third quarter, Uber lost more than $800 million, not including its Chinese operation. Uber's loss in the first quarter of this year was about $580 million, according to the person. By the second quarter, the loss significantly exceeded $800 million, including China. At the same time, the company's revenue has continued to grow even after leaving the world's most populous country. Uber generated about $3.76 billion in net revenue in the first nine months of 2016 and is on track to exceed $5.5 billion this year, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Even in the U.S., Uber's home market, the company continues to lose money. After turning a slight profit in the in the first quarter of this year, Uber lost $100 million in the U.S. in the second quarter. The loss increased in the third quarter, the person said. Lyft, Uber's largest U.S. competitor, has promised investors that it will keep its losses below $150 million a quarter.

• France is going to let drones start delivering the mail: The French postal service will soon start a new drone delivery program to carry parcels on a set nine-mile route following approval from the French aviation regulatory authority. It’s just an experiment for now, not a fully launched program, and will only operate once a week. But it is the first time a federal postal service will use drones to deliver on a regular route. The DPDgroup, a subsidiary of the French national postal service, has been perfecting its drone delivery project since 2014 in the south of France, working in partnership with Atechsys, a French drone company. In September 2015, the drone delivery project demonstrated its aircraft could fly in complete autonomy carrying a package weighing over three pounds a distance of nearly nine miles. Last Tuesday, Amazon released a video of its first customer drone delivery in the British countryside. And in China, online retailer JD.com started the trial of its drone delivery program in November with a fleet of 30 drones that ferry orders to locations in rural China outside of Beijing, as well as Jiangsu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces, according to the South China Morning Post.