Uber Points to the Power of the Platform

Uber expects its gross bookings to rise between 18% and 22% in the second quarter of 2023 to between 33 billion and 34 billion US dollars, excluding freight and on a constant-currency basis. Including freight, it expects gross bookings to rise 15% to 19% on a constant-currency basis.

In the first quarter, Uber saw constant-currency gross bookings up 22% year-on-year, with revenue rising 33% on a constant currency basis to 8.8 billion US dollars, fuelled by a change in the business model for its UK mobility business. 

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, talked up the economies of scope between the delivery business and the mobility business. He said: "The audience that we have on the mobility business is the largest audience in the world in terms of any of our mobility competitors....And we're the only ... scale players who are upselling from mobility to delivery, and then vice versa. 

"We have a source of low-cost traffic, significantly low-cost traffic. Our mobility business sends us more customers than we get from Facebook and Google and Snap and all of these different platforms combined. And that's just a structural advantage that we have against the overall market, certainly, against the competitors.

"Advertisers are up 70% year on year using our platform. And you get some pretty powerful economic drivers that's allowing us to deliver the kinds of bottom line that you saw on our delivery business, which is well ahead of estimates, while getting category position in nine of our top 10 markets on a global basis."

In its delivery business, Uber has entered into new partnerships to support a shift to electric modes of transport, including working with Gachaco to provide rapid battery replacement for three-wheelers in Japan; Lumala to improve e-cycle availability for Uber Eats couriers in Sri Lanka; and HumanForest to give Uber Eats couriers full access to its e-bike and e-moped fleet in London. 

It has also entered into a multi-market commercial partnership with Tembici, a leader in micromobility across Latin America, to make bikes and electric bikes available directly in the Uber app. Source: Uber earnings collateral