Uber Technologies Inc. shares slid by the most in six months after the company issued a bookings outlook that just met analyst estimates, compounding concerns from investors about the company’s ability to evolve in the robotaxi era. Total gross bookings — a key metric that includes ride hails, delivery orders and driver and merchant earnings but not tips — will be $58.25 billion to $60.25 billion for the quarter ending in September, the company said Wednesday. For more, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi spoke with Bloomberg Tech host Ed Ludlow.
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What Dara Khosrowshahi said
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Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi discussed Q2 results and robotaxi strategy. He said gross bookings rose 22% in the quarter, with mobility stable at 20% and delivery accelerating, despite a slowdown in Brazil caused by competition in food delivery that diverted two-wheeler drivers. He noted over 300 million trips per week and over 10 million earners, with US driver earnings up 8% year-on-year, and saw no consumer slowdown. On robotaxis, Uber is in seven cities and on track for 15 by year-end. He expects Zoox to be available on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year. He downplayed the Phoenix Waymo deployment as less than 10 cars, and said Uber aims to avoid dependence on any single partner, citing Zoox, Wayve, Aurora, Waabi, and Nvidia. He compared the AV market to foundation models, predicting multiple winners, and said pricing and demand for robotaxis are strong.
Key takeaways
Gross bookings grew 22% in Q2, with mobility stable at 20% and delivery accelerating.
Uber is in seven robotaxi cities and on track to be in 15 markets by end of year.
Zoox robotaxis will be available on the Uber app in Las Vegas later this year.
Phoenix Waymo deployment was less than 10 cars and not material.
AV is less than 0.5% of overall trips, but pricing and demand are strong.
2:12Dara, is 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?
3:19Are you wanting to see the team accelerate a bit on that deployment, Dara?
4:59When will it be available on an Uber app in whichever city with a fare associated with it?
5:33There was a change of plans in Phoenix, but how confident are you also about renewing non-exclusive contracts with Waymo?
6:36... accept that Waymo is kind of the commercial robo taxi leader in the US, at least in terms of deployments, charging a fare ahead of the rest of the field, which do you think is most competitive or going to be most competitive against Waymo?
8:08So, Dara, really quick — to drive early adoption, is it important that the robo taxi firms price lower than other ride share?
Let's take another look at shares of Uber, down about 6%. I think that's on track for its biggest drop since November. The company said gross bookings for the current quarter are expected to be between 58.25 billion and $60.25 billion, but that figure includes rides and delivery bookings as well as driver and merchant earnings. Uber said it faces some international headwinds, particularly in Brazil. And next, focus robo taxi. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's back with us here on Bloomberg Tech. You know, the gross bookings outlook — there's a number of stories within it. I'd also note at the same time rider activity seems to be increasing. Help us understand those two data points.
The gross bookings results that we had, 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 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 other indications — are consumers trading down and eating at more affordable restaurants, are eaters leaving less tips, are riders 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 earners around the world, that continues to be very healthy, and in the US 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 robo taxis. You kind of explained 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. Are you 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. And 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 in 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. They got a great approval from the NHTSA to run their really innovative and cool robot vehicles. As well, we got approval for Waymo to start testing operations in London as well. Nvidia, who is a huge partner of ours, announced the release of their Alpha Make 2 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 partnerships, 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.
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