Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the streets kind of mild quickly
Speaker 2: focused on growth, the slow down in growth. But I
Speaker 2: think what's interesting about Uber and in its multi offerings, right,
Speaker 2: is that that can be different in different geographies. Was
Speaker 2: there somewhere specifically in the world where ride sharing slowed
Speaker 2: down and you can identify a reason for it, or
Speaker 2: there were pockets where you were stronger in particular businesses
Speaker 2: in certain countries around the world.
Speaker 1: Actually, the growth for US this quarter has been remarkably
Speaker 1: consistent with the last quarter. Trip growth. Trips came in
Speaker 1: three billion trips in the quarter, which is a pretty
Speaker 1: extraordinary number, up eighteen percent on a year on year basis.
Speaker 1: Where you did see a slowdown is on growth bookings growth.
Speaker 1: Gross bookings growth slowed down a bit from Q four,
Speaker 1: and that was essentially because of price. You know, we
Speaker 1: think as a company the best way to grow is
Speaker 1: to increase audience, increase your frequency. Our audience was up
Speaker 1: fourteen percent, frequencies was up three percent. But as we
Speaker 1: saw the opportunity to reduce increases in pricing, especially as
Speaker 1: it related to insurance costs in the US, which have
Speaker 1: been increasing at pretty extraordinary rates. It forced us to
Speaker 1: pass on those cost increases to consumers. We're seeing the
Speaker 1: increasing insurance costs start to modulate. You know, we now
Speaker 1: give incentives to our drivers to drive more safely. We
Speaker 1: give them a safety score, so to speak. There has
Speaker 1: been some insurance reform in a couple of states and
Speaker 1: that's essentially allowed us to reduce any increases in pricing.
Speaker 1: Pricing was flat year on year in Q one versus
Speaker 1: last quarter, or was up four percent. We think that's
Speaker 1: actually very healthy for the consumer. And what we're able
Speaker 1: to do is not pass on these price increases but
Speaker 1: really increased profitability. Profitability was one point nine billion dollars
Speaker 1: in EBIT a thirty five percent year on year record
Speaker 1: free cash flow as well. So we're very very happy
Speaker 1: with the growth that we're seeing and hopefully there'll be
Speaker 1: more to come.
Speaker 3: Let's just talk about the leavers to pull in the
Speaker 3: growth that you're seeing and indeed in margins, because this
Speaker 3: economic environment doesn't make it feel like any more pricing
Speaker 3: can be passed on to a consumer. Is that what
Speaker 3: you're feeling, Well, it's not.
Speaker 1: I do think that we have passed on pricing to
Speaker 1: the consumer and the business as you have you seen,
Speaker 1: has scaled really well. We just want to do everything
Speaker 1: that we can to keep everyday low prices for the consumer,
Speaker 1: both in mobility and delivery, to really drive that frequency growth.
Speaker 1: Frequency now in terms of engagement with our platform is
Speaker 1: six transactions per month on average. It continues to grow.
Speaker 1: And for example, one of the areas that we're really
Speaker 1: focused on is our Uber one membership program. We got
Speaker 1: over thirty million members. It gives you a discount to
Speaker 1: use Uber more. So again, the more we can pass
Speaker 1: on discounts to the consumers, the more they become attached
Speaker 1: to the platform, both in rides and delivery, the better
Speaker 1: long term growth we've got ahead of us.
Speaker 2: There are I'm a loyal Uber one subscriber and I
Speaker 2: think I see I think I see the net benefit
Speaker 2: right on top of what I spend to b one
Speaker 2: and I'm in that key category of US ride share,
Speaker 2: which is so profitable for you. What I think would
Speaker 2: help the audience understand Uber's business better is is that
Speaker 2: something the boost margins for you Uber one or is
Speaker 2: it another incentive? I also get sort of the AMEX
Speaker 2: credit card benefit each month, right, and it's really hard
Speaker 2: to understand that as a mechanism for Uber to drive
Speaker 2: profit or if you're just giving more away.
Speaker 1: Well, it absolutely is driving profit in that the average
Speaker 1: consumer becomes more profitable for us in dollar terms once
Speaker 1: they become a member, so members are worth more. It
Speaker 1: is driving long term profitability. Now there is a hit
Speaker 1: to profit margins, right, which is the for that consumer.
Speaker 1: We're passing on savings to you. And what happens is
Speaker 1: is that the Uber one member starts transacting much more.
Speaker 1: On average, Uber one members transact three times more than
Speaker 1: non members, They retain fifteen percent higher, they tend to
Speaker 1: cross shop a lot more. About half of our Uber
Speaker 1: one members use both their mobility product and our delivery
Speaker 1: product as well. But they're doing so because of the savings.
Speaker 1: But then what we're doing now is we're also introducing
Speaker 1: experiential benefits, so you get a priority dispatch, for example
Speaker 1: in airports as a benefit of being an Uber one member.
Speaker 1: So when you look long term, it absolutely is driving
Speaker 1: revenue growth, is driving booking's growth, is driving profitability growth.
Speaker 1: But we do give up some margins to that member
Speaker 1: to keep them kind of working with us, and we're
Speaker 1: definitely seeing it in terms of frequency and the amount
Speaker 1: of spend on a platform.
Speaker 3: Dar let's talk about airports. Let's talk about international travelers
Speaker 3: a little bit more, because Americans are traveling and they're
Speaker 3: spending elsewhere, and you'll see it coming up in your data.
Speaker 3: What about people coming here in America and are you
Speaker 3: seeing Canadians others starting to shun trips.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so our airport's business and travel business continues to
Speaker 1: be a real star in our portfolio. Airports has consistently
Speaker 1: been growing. Airport trips tend to be more premium, so
Speaker 1: you have more comfort cars or black cars as well.
Speaker 1: But we are seeing it effect in terms of the
Speaker 1: international traveler coming into the US. Canada, for example, Canada
Speaker 1: travel coming into the US was weaker than Canada to
Speaker 1: travel to other parts of the world. The great thing
Speaker 1: about our position is, you know, we're kind of capturing
Speaker 1: that business. Anyway, if they go to the UK, if
Speaker 1: they go to France, they if they go to many
Speaker 1: of the countries in which we operate, we're still going
Speaker 1: to there's still going to be uber customers and they're
Speaker 1: still going to get that air per pickup. But those
Speaker 1: airport pickups internationally growing faster than the airport pickups locally,
Speaker 1: we are seeing that trend.
Speaker 3: I want to go globe a little bit more as
Speaker 3: well when it comes to potential M and A opportunities
Speaker 3: because we're looking at what's just occurred in the UK
Speaker 3: door dash stuffing up delivery for example, you're talking about
Speaker 3: the cross pollination of driver to delivery. Are you thinking
Speaker 3: doubling down on delivery anymore? Inorganic growth rather than just organic?
Speaker 1: Well, I think what's a great accomplishment of the team
Speaker 1: here at Uber is that the vast majority of our
Speaker 1: growth has been organically. We established ourselves globally and now
Speaker 1: seventy plus country countries organically. We built our European business
Speaker 1: from the ground up. We started the business there and
Speaker 1: we also started Uber Eats organically as well. So the
Speaker 1: capability of this team to innovate and to be a
Speaker 1: big scale company but then grow businesses from scratch is
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary. We now see. We've always said that the
Speaker 1: advantage that we have as a company is we are
Speaker 1: globe in nature, and we compete with a bunch of
Speaker 1: subscale local players, and we're multi platform. We have both
Speaker 1: rides and the eats business feeding each other. With this
Speaker 1: Uber one membership program that is really second to none,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing the competitor, the competitors having to go
Speaker 1: out and acquire companies inorganically. I think it shows that
Speaker 1: our strategy is working. I'd always rather innovate them by
Speaker 1: and I think Uber is a kind of company that
Speaker 1: is continuing to innovate in all the sectors that we're in.
Speaker 2: That applies to autonomous driving or a future robotaxi service, right.
Speaker 2: You know, Uber positions itself as a distribution platform and
Speaker 2: fleet manager. So in the first instance, there are how
Speaker 2: do you react to that partnership between Wai Moo and
Speaker 2: Toyota and how do you think that that will serve
Speaker 2: Uber's platform going forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we absolutely believe in the power of partnership and
Speaker 1: we're incredibly bullish about the possibilities of av You know,
Speaker 1: this is going to be a multi trillion dollar opportunity.
Speaker 1: Av's are going to be safer than humans. We absolutely
Speaker 1: believe we need superhuman safety as it relates to av's
Speaker 1: and we have a great partnership with Weimo. Weimo for us.
Speaker 1: We launch in Austin. It's been an incredibly successful partnership.
Speaker 1: We're about to launch in Atlanta as well. So when
Speaker 1: we see these partnerships of Weimo, let's say, with Toyota,
Speaker 1: to bring the Weimo driver to you know, hopefully every
Speaker 1: single Toyota or personally owned vehicles, we think that's a
Speaker 1: great thing. It's a great thing in terms of vehicles
Speaker 1: being safer on the streets. But to the extent that
Speaker 1: those Toyotas are bought by fleets, we think that we
Speaker 1: as a distribution partner, can really drive the most utilization.
Speaker 1: We think those autonomous toyotas could be on the Uber
Speaker 1: network and based on what we're seeing in Austin with Weimo,
Speaker 1: if they're on the Uber network, they are going to
Speaker 1: be super, super busy.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing in Austin is a case study
Speaker 2: DAR in terms of the percentage of rides completed in
Speaker 2: that geofense geography that are robotaxi versus human driven. And
Speaker 2: it's an expensive enterprise, but what's the margin profile like
Speaker 2: of an autonomous ride versus a human driven ride.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, so we're very encouraged by the launch. It
Speaker 1: is still early. We have about one hundred vehicles on
Speaker 1: the road and that's increasing every week as the operations
Speaker 1: continue to evolve. What we're seeing is very very high
Speaker 1: utilization of these vehicles. The average WEIMO vehicle on Uber
Speaker 1: is busier than ninety nine percent of human drivers in
Speaker 1: terms of completed trips per vehicle per week, which is
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary, and we think that there's a potential for
Speaker 1: it to grow as a percentage of our total rides.
Speaker 1: It's still a small percentage, but that's because we don't
Speaker 1: have enough vehicles on the road. So I think as
Speaker 1: a vehicle count expands, it will be a higher percentage
Speaker 1: of our overall business. And then in terms of margins,
Speaker 1: today autonomous vehicles are very expensive. We invest, along with
Speaker 1: Uber significantly in safety. So the margins of an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle in terms of the commercialization of that business, are
Speaker 1: lower than the margins of our base business. But we
Speaker 1: always believe that you've got to invest in innovation. You know,
Speaker 1: Uber each started as an unprofitable enterprise. For years now
Speaker 1: it's making billions of dollars. Margins continue to increase, So
Speaker 1: at the beginning stages of any enterprise in partnership, you've
Speaker 1: got to invest. We are in investment mode and autonomous
Speaker 1: and with a portfolio that we can have, we can
Speaker 1: invest in innovation, but at the same time deliver record
Speaker 1: breaking profits, you know, quarter after quarter, year after year.
Speaker 3: How do you want to place yourself in that value
Speaker 3: chain as well? A little bit, Dara, because your very
Speaker 3: asset light, but will you have to invest more in
Speaker 3: the infrastructure and the offering of charging and also you're
Speaker 3: going outside of the realm of mobility to offer your
Speaker 3: AI services for example as well, how much more do
Speaker 3: you want to add on.
Speaker 1: And make that well? It is we are very asset light,
Speaker 1: and we are going to both invest and partner in
Speaker 1: some of these areas. So for example, we have fleet
Speaker 1: partners who focus on charging the vehicles, repairing in terms
Speaker 1: of having depots, etc. It will be a combination for
Speaker 1: us of both investment, direct investment and partnerships as we
Speaker 1: build this ecosystem. Again, there's going to be a trillion
Speaker 1: dollar plus ecosystem, and I think we can play a
Speaker 1: key part in the development of that ecosystem. And then
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. We're very, very excited about the power
Speaker 1: of AI in multiple dimensions and we do have a
Speaker 1: really promising business that we're building Uber ai solutions where
Speaker 1: actually we're using our drivers and other experts for example,
Speaker 1: to rate models. We can operate this globally. We've got
Speaker 1: over eight and a half million people earning on our platform,
Speaker 1: and we're just extending that platform not just to drive
Speaker 1: folks around, not just to deliver, but also train AI models,
Speaker 1: translate language, et cetera. We think it's a really really
Speaker 1: exciting new business that we're building with our partners as well.
Speaker 3: And let's just go to that global footprint for a moment.
Speaker 3: Because you recently increased your partnership with Reride, which is
Speaker 3: over in China for example. It's about expanding in Europe
Speaker 3: and other countries from an av perspective, But how easy
Speaker 3: or hard is it to make deals with the Chinese
Speaker 3: right now in this geopolitical environment.
Speaker 1: Well, we Ride has been a terrific partner. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: generalize in terms of the Chinese. You know, we have
Speaker 1: terrific relationships with Reride, with Pony, We've had really really
Speaker 1: promising talks with bay Do as well. The fact is
Speaker 1: that these Chinese companies are run by entrepreneurs who want
Speaker 1: to grow, who want to innovate, and they're innovating incredible speed,
Speaker 1: and we want to be part of that innovation and
Speaker 1: we want to grow in partnership in the right markets.
Speaker 1: I do think that we will be working with Chinese
Speaker 1: av players in Europe, in the Middle East, in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, and then obviously here in the
Speaker 1: US we want to be partnering up with local players
Speaker 1: like Weima.
Speaker 3: And lastly, it's a sensitive one, Dara, but we talked
Speaker 3: about how well, perhaps there are fewer travelers coming from
Speaker 3: Canada into the United States as such a pin up
Speaker 3: US brand. Are you finding any reticence geographically from international
Speaker 3: users in this time where perhaps well America's brand is
Speaker 3: getting hit a little bit.
Speaker 1: It feels it's something that we've asked ourselves, but we
Speaker 1: don't see any signal there whatsoever. And I think what's
Speaker 1: great about Uber is that we're the ultimate local company. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're a global brand, but the fact is that when
Speaker 1: you get into that car, you're getting into a car
Speaker 1: with a local entrepreneur. The majority of the fair goes
Speaker 1: to to drivers as well, so we are kind of
Speaker 1: the flow of funds is very very local. We work
Speaker 1: with the local merchants in your city, so it's not
Speaker 1: only local in terms of countries, but it's actually local
Speaker 1: in terms of the cities in which we operate. We are,
Speaker 1: you know, the ultimate global local company if you want
Speaker 1: to call it that, and I think it shows in
Speaker 1: the results, and you know, we're big believers in the
Speaker 1: US brand. We're obviously going through a periative change. The
Speaker 1: long term, we absolutely believe that the relationship between the
Speaker 1: US and the rest of the world will continue to
Speaker 1: be strong and we want to be a part of
Speaker 1: that