Uber Technologies shares dropped after the company issued a bookings outlook that just met analyst estimates. Trips volume also fell short in the second quarter. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi remains confident though and says there are no signs of a consumer slowdown. He also talks about expanding robotaxi partnerships in the US. He speaks to Ed Ludlow on "Bloomberg Tech."
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What Dara Khosrowshahi said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Dara Khosrowshahi discussed Uber's Q2 2026 results, noting gross bookings grew 22% year-over-year with acceleration, and mobility grew 20%. He attributed a trip slowdown in Brazil to competition in food delivery, which pulled two-wheeler drivers away from mobility, but said it had no effect on Uber. He saw no consumer slowdown, citing healthy growth in mobility and delivery, and noted driver earnings in the U.S. were up 8% year-over-year. On robotaxis, he said Uber is in seven markets and will be in 15 by year-end, with Zoox launching in Las Vegas later this year. He downplayed the Phoenix Waymo deployment as less than ten cars and emphasized a multi-partner strategy, comparing the AV market to the foundation model space, predicting multiple winners. He said pricing for robotaxis is strong and adoption will take time.
Key takeaways
Gross bookings grew 22% in Q2 2026, with mobility stable at 20% and delivery accelerating.
Uber will be in 15 robotaxi markets by end of 2026, up from seven currently.
Zoox robotaxis will be available on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year.
U.S. driver earnings are up 8% year-over-year, with over 10 million earners globally.
Phoenix Waymo deployment was less than ten cars and not material to Uber.
1:31Is there anything to discuss on both the health and behavior of the consumer that you're seeing going into the second half of this year?
4:22When will it be available on the Uber app in whichever city with a fare associated with it?
4:55There was a change of plans in Phoenix, but how confident are you also about sort of renewing nonexclusive contracts with Waymo?
5:57If we accept that Waymo's kind of the commercial robotaxi leader in the U.S., at least in terms of deployments charging a fare, of the rest of the field, which do you think is most competitive or going to be most competitive against Waymo?
7:29To drive early adoption, is it important that the robotaxi firms price lower than other rideshare?
The gross bookings out look like there's a number of stories within it. I'd also note, like at the same time, rider activity seems to be increasing. Help us understand those two data points.
The gross bookings results that we have, up 22% in the quarter, were actually very healthy and represented quarter on quarter acceleration. Mobility business was stable at 20%. The delivery business actually accelerated quarter on quarter as well. So the business continues to grow at pretty extraordinary rates at the scale. We're doing over 300 million trips per week. It drove really strong profitability as well. The pressure that we talked about was really in Brazil, which caused a trip slowdown for the quarter. And that was actually about competition in the food delivery space. In Brazil, actually, we have a lot of mobility ridership that are two-wheelers. We actually don't engage in the food delivery space, but there's a big war going on in food delivery, and that took away some of our two-wheeler drivers from mobility to delivery, because they're getting paid a lot to engage in that war. It really has no effect on us whatsoever. So the guidance that we gave for forward gross bookings growth is very consistent with the guidance that we gave last quarter. And hopefully we will meet and hopefully beat those kinds of expectations.
All signs point to a healthy consumer. We look at both our mobility and delivery business in terms of the growth of those businesses. They continue to be healthy. We look at like other indications are consumers trading down and eating at more affordable restaurants, or eaters leaving less tips. We don't see any signs whatsoever of a consumer slowdown, so the consumer remains strong. And then on the labor front, actually our driver earnings, we've got over 10 million now earners around the world, that continues to be very healthy. And in the U.S., for example, driver earnings are up 8% on a year on year basis. So, you know, people talk about the K-shaped economy, but we think both sides of the K continue to be very healthy. And right now all signs point to the same going forward.
Let's take the driver out of it for a moment and talk about robotaxis. You kind of explain the plan for the rest of the year, which is to get into more cities through different partnerships and different lanes, different methods. Let's start with that. You're wanting to see the team accelerate a bit on that deployment. Dara.
Yeah, definitely. So we're in seven cities already with a number of partners. Just to review, we want to work with all of the ecosystem partners. And just like we want every safe human driver on our platform, we want every safe robot driver on our platform, and we're working with the entire ecosystem to accomplish that. We're in seven markets now. By the end of the year, we'll be in 15 markets, and we're on track to be on 15 markets. And we see a lot of advancements as it relates to our partners. I know you're going to have Aisha from Zoox on. They got a great approval from the TSA to run their really innovative and cool robot vehicles as well. We got approval for Wayve to start testing operations in London as well. And Nvidia, who is a huge partner of ours, announced the release of their Omniverse model, which is a physical AI model as well. So the ecosystem around AV continues to move forward, is actually accelerating, and we are helping that ecosystem accelerate through our partnership, through investment, through data collection for a number of these partners, and then ultimately commercialization of these vehicles on the road in the cities in which we live.
Dara, on Zoox. And I'll ask you this, obviously, but now they can charge a fare, which is a first for a true robotaxi. No driver controls. When does that manifest on the Uber app? When will it be available on the Uber app in whichever city with a fare associated with it?
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Khosrowshahi, D. (2026, August 5). Uber CEO Sees No Sign of Consumer Slowdown [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Podcasts. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1161120/
MLA
Dara Khosrowshahi. "Uber CEO Sees No Sign of Consumer Slowdown." Bloomberg Podcasts, 5 Aug. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1161120/.
BibTeX
@misc{khosrowshahi2026_1161120,
author = {Dara Khosrowshahi},
title = {Uber CEO Sees No Sign of Consumer Slowdown},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Podcasts. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {aug},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1161120/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
