Benzinga on $UBER (Nov 4, 2026)

The third quarter was another strong quarter in terms of growth and profitability expansion for Uber, with record numbers in audience and engagement across our platform. We've reached 215 million monthly active consumers on the platform who are using Uber more frequently than ever before.

This helped us achieve our fifth consecutive quarter of gross booking growth of more than 20 % year over year, along with 35% growth in non-GAAP earnings per share, and a record 12-month free cash balance of $10.4 billion.

The mobility service continued to see healthy growth, but fell short of our expectations as a result of the supply of drivers not keeping pace with strong consumer demand in many international markets.

We are responding with targeted investments to improve driver availability and market balance, and we saw encouraging improvement in October.

Our focus is on driving steady growth while maintaining strong profitability for the business. The delivery division had another excellent quarter, with total bookings up 23% year-on-year and organic growth accelerating.

With nearly 55 million subscribers on Uber One, we are deepening our relationships with consumers in the areas of mobility and delivery.

In the field of autonomous vehicles , our focus is shifting from partnerships and testing to driverless commercial service. We are excited to launch Zoox on the Uber platform in Las Vegas later this month, with Motional moving to fully autonomous operations shortly thereafter.

We expect to have nearly 700 fully autonomous vehicles on Uber by the end of the year, and more than 2,000 by the end of 2027.

Equally important, we are focused on proving the use and economic viability necessary for expansion. As we enter the fourth quarter, our priorities have become clear. Improving the mobility offering , building on the delivery momentum, and achieving self-driving vehicle milestones, all while continuing to grow profitably.

After 10 years here at Uber, Jill will be moving to OpenAI. It's a big win for them. It is a loss for us to lose someone like Jill.

I think you know that we are not yet ready to talk much about the structures we are currently working on, but what I would like to draw your attention to is the $1 billion financing arrangement that we created with Santander earlier this year.

That focus was directed towards our partners in traditional fleets. This is a model of what we can do with fleets of self-driving vehicles in the next few months.

Therefore, our long-term expectation is that this will be funded through third-party capital, not from Uber's balance sheet. In the near term, as you saw in our announcement that we will have around 700 self-driving vehicles on our network this year, and 2,000 by the end of next year, the capital investment required for this is somewhat limited ; But as we begin to expand to a range of more than 10,000 vehicles in 2028 and beyond, we want to bring in capital from a third party, and we are optimistic about the return on investment that these third parties can generate.

My simple addition is that we believe that financing these fleets of cars will be somewhat unusual. If you look at financing rental car fleets, for example, they all depend on the residual value of the vehicles.

I believe the remaining value of self-driving vehicles has not yet been determined. As a result, in the early days, we will include these vehicles in our balance sheet . We have a very strong balance sheet, and we are able to do this.

What we are able to prove is that the cars on our network achieve very high usage rates, which are actually higher than the usage rates of cars not on our network. We demonstrate excellence in usage rates of approximately 30% on our network.

And we can do that with great flexibility . So, you know, if a fleet were to experience some kind of operational difficulties, we could take that self-driving vehicle and place it under separate ownership, and it would still generate revenue for the Uber network, so to speak.

Therefore, we believe that financing on the Uber network can have a real advantage in terms of cost of capital compared to alternatives.

This is a business model that we are working to establish with our partners . In fact, the reactions were positive, and they are very interested. They want to diversify their investments away from data centers, so to speak.

So, we are very optimistic about it, but we need to establish the business model, the benefits of use, and prove it to the banks, and then go from there.

Yes. Yes, thank you, Nikhil. I think what I can say is that much of this is a continuation of the dynamics we have seen throughout the year. Looking at the bigger picture of the overall scene, with the escalation and war in the Middle East, we have felt the effects of fuel costs globally.

This effect is particularly evident to us in emerging markets where there is a level of price sensitivity among both consumers and drivers.

What we talked about in the last quarter in Brazil focused specifically on the availability of motorcycles in light of competition from delivery services in the market. But during the last quarter, we saw the impact of rising fuel prices in markets such as Brazil and India in particular significantly affect the supply situation.

Similarly, as you know, the migration dynamics remained constant throughout the year. But as we enter the second half of the year, we are seeing increased demand due to the current holiday season , which reaffirms that the demand situation is very strong.

We observe an increasing impact on market supply when supply is limited. So, that's kind of what we're referring to in Canada as well.

Now, this is a good problem; Given the scale of our operations, we are still facing supply constraints rather than demand constraints. We know exactly how to handle this type of challenge based on our proven track record.

We make targeted investments in the offering, focusing on attracting, retaining, and engaging drivers. As we continue with this type of investment, we are already feeling optimistic about the early signs of supply improvement that we saw in October.

Globally, the growth in display hours accelerated in October, including notable improvements in Brazil and India. So, I think that with all that, you see our expectations remain firm at a growth range of between 18% and 22%, which is a stable level compared to the last two quarters.

Therefore, we feel comfortable with our current position, and the growth trajectory in our top ten markets is very long . Over the past five years, we have doubled our penetration of eligible populations in our top ten markets, but it is still only at 10%, isn’t it?

Therefore, we feel very optimistic about the future prospects we can reach.

An additional interesting factor we deal with is that we face annual supply pressure, as well as seasonal pressure, with September, October, November and December being the peak season for us in the areas of transportation and delivery.

In some markets, such as Brazil, mobility and delivery depend on two-wheeled vehicles, which is, for example, one aspect of supply that we need to increase. Therefore, these factors overlap with each other.

It is a seasonal issue and an annual issue that coincide and affect each other. But we have the situation well under control. We are very optimistic about the trends we are seeing in October as we enter the fourth quarter.

And again, this is not the first time we have dealt with such a situation.

Yes, absolutely, Brian. We are very excited about the progress we are making in the grocery and retail business. We currently have an annual operating rate of $15 billion, with 40% year-on-year growth.

We see this as representing a $ 10 trillion Total Directional Market (TAM) . Therefore, it is a huge market for us.

For us, investment areas are really about diversification. It also relates to affordability. It relates to the consumer experience. On the diversity side, we are very excited to expand to include Costco nationwide.

We have also added a number of international players, such as Target, Decathlon and Priceline in Australia, Tesco in the UK and Reilly in Germany as well. Therefore, we continue to invest in expanding options.

With more options available, we are seeing more consumers joining online as well.

Our conversion rates are also improving. We continue to invest in affordability, whether through " Fresh Off Tuesdays" or, for example, having no member fees for orders over $60, which our members also love.

We also continue to invest in product innovation to ensure that our selection and packaging processes are as accurate as possible. We invest in the quality of our shoppers. Therefore, we pay high-quality shoppers more.

We also offer new technologies, where shoppers take a picture of the empty shelf to confirm that the item they are looking for is not there. This also helps consumers, because when they see the empty shelf, they do not feel resentful.

It's not the shopper's fault. Simply put, what they wanted was not available. Thus, it helps to build trust between the two sides of the market.

For us, it's all about execution. With regard to dark shops, our first priority was to work with our partners and help them grow their businesses. We are extremely excited about Delivery Hero.

They have built huge businesses in the fast-food and dark-store sectors. The advantage of dark stores is that they give you much better control over inventory. The success rate of selection and packaging and product retrieval rates are usually much higher.

Therefore, quality increases as a result of vertical integration. This is part of the potential acquisition of " Delivery Hero" that we are very excited about . That team has been working on building their fast-food business for over 7 or 8 years.

I've reached the point of parity. It is growing at very attractive rates. We are very excited to add it as part of our portfolio once the "Delivery Hero" deal is finalized.

One additional comment regarding the issue of dark shops. This is a suitable solution for the intended purpose, isn't it? We don't want to enter this field everywhere, but there are markets where it makes sense .

As Dara mentioned, Delivery Hero has done a really good job of establishing its dark-market footprint in the Middle East . We are also in a position to look into this business in Türkiye, both through our current presence in the market and through the "Geter" deal we made.

This business is also close to being profitable . We have also experimented with this organically in Taiwan. Ultimately, it must be a well-managed business that meets market conditions and generates a good return on assets when entering this field.

Therefore, we will be selective in the places where we participate in this. Otherwise, we will work with our grocery partners who are experts at doing this in their own space.

Yes, absolutely. Well, we are very excited . I mean, we have launches. It is clear that we are already in the market with Waymo in the United States . We are present in the market with We Ride and Baidu driverless, in a number of international markets.

We expect Zoox to launch, as mentioned, in Vegas this year. Next year, we expect to add Nuro in California. And also in Houston, Texas

Regarding mobility in the United States, we are seeing relatively resilient growth compared to the international trends we discussed earlier in the call. You know that growth slowed down a little in the third quarter, but not as much as international markets .

High fuel prices are a problem globally, and there is a certain level of supply pressure that we see in the United States as well, but we are responding with targeted investments, investments in supply as we have talked about previously.

I think that aside from the issue of supply, what we are seeing in the United States and what continues to be true is that the favorable winds of insurance are still blowing. We have talked about the remarkable acceleration in the growth of travel in California, which is outpacing the rest of the country.

Secondly, our diversified product (barbell) strategy is still very healthy in the United States. Barbel U.S. products grew at three times the overall business growth rate in the third quarter, driven by strong innovation and our growth portfolio, including Safe, Comfort, Reserve and Black, as well as expansion into new demographics such as teenagers and women’s preferences, targeting new consumer groups and creating more choices for our customer base.

Finally, from the perspective of low-density markets, we see very large opportunities in the United States ; Less than 10% of eligible consumers in these markets have used Uber in the past twelve months.

That figure in high-density markets is 50% of consumers. Therefore, we continue to make improvements to supply and reliability in these markets, which will have very positive long-term effects.

Yes, and we are quite satisfied with the delivery performance in the United States, which has accelerated quite well . This is the second consecutive quarter in which organic growth for delivery services in the United States has accelerated, due to several factors.

One of the calculations is that our grocery, retail, and direct business, which is growing faster than our OSB business , now constitutes a larger percentage of the portfolio .

Therefore, you now have a larger and faster-growing part of the business that is getting bigger and bigger.

Our core restaurant business is also accelerating, thanks to the merchant options available. The number of merchants we added in the United States rose well by approximately 12% year-over-year.

Therefore, adding more options helps improve conversion rates.

We are also attracting new customers to the platform . Membership is certainly a big boost for us, as members now represent 70% of total delivery bookings. Thus, membership also deepens the interaction with our consumers.

And of course, “Sparks Markets ,” Bobby says, “is a plan we are implementing globally , and it is certainly a plan we are implementing in the United States as well for delivery services.” This helps us.

Last but not least, the offers. We focus on merchant-funded promotions in addition to the membership discounts we offer to our consumers. If you look at our advertising business and merchant-funded promotions, it has grown to exceed 10 billion on an annual basis.

These are sums of money that we provide to our consumers. The benefit for traders is to attract new consumers and achieve greater market penetration.

So, all of this is paying off for now. If there is one issue, it is mobility, where we continue to invest in delivery and couriers to ensure that courier growth keeps pace with the consumer demand we are seeing in the food sector.

This is the biggest challenge we currently face. But we believe the team is more than capable of handling it.

Yes, Mark, I think I'll bring you back to our philosophy as it always has been, which is that we want to promote margin expansion for the company as a whole on an annual basis.

Ideally, we want to do this for the sectors as well. But on a quarterly basis, there is some variation in business, both from the investments we usually make in the display during the holiday season and so on.

Therefore, I will not refer to any fundamental changes in the margin path of the work.

As you know, we will have some clarification regarding the potential for supply investments in the fourth quarter that may have an impact on the discount rate , but not necessarily anything significant from a margin perspective.

Look, I think the last point I'm going to make here is about profitability. If you look at our projections, we achieved earnings per share growth of the mid-thirties percent during the quarter.

The fourth-quarter forecast we just provided at the midpoint is a 37% year-over-year growth in non-GAAP earnings per share . So, if anything , you're seeing an expansion in earnings, and that puts us in a very good position for 2027.

And Mark, just a little more so you understand the picture in terms of supply and demand. We have a base pricing structure for both consumer pricing and a base pricing structure for drivers' wages, delivery companies, etc. Then we have incentives, and you can call them passenger-side incentives , driver-side incentives, food-ordering-side incentives, you know, and then delivery company incentives too.

This is more flexible money that we target at specific times, such as Halloween, to ensure the attendance of drivers, etc. Or we target specific locations if we think there is a match taking place; we will put in place incentives for drivers to attend the match on time.

But the great thing is that we are simply rebalancing the incentives between passengers and drivers, for example, in this case . While last year more incentives went to passengers to lower the price, this year we are reducing passenger incentives and using those funds to finance driver incentives.

This sometimes means higher fares for passengers, which is something we monitor carefully. We will make trade-offs for profitability, but that's something we deal with.

But there is a set of flexible incentives that we allocate to supply or demand based on market equilibrium, and this is part of the art we possess. There is a lot of science , algorithmic science, that goes into "Hey, if you have a dollar, what is the maximum expected return for that dollar, and should I invest that dollar in a driver in Brazil, or should I invest it in a passenger in India," for example.

Um, algorithms make these choices, and they are structurally capable of making these decisions based on training on billions of trips, and they can allocate these investments in a way that humans cannot .

Yes, of course. So, Doug, I think our focus is on ensuring that we invest in providing the best possible experience if you come to us directly. You know, it's about price , delivery time, reliability, and variety .

It is clear that we have membership benefits, and members now represent more than 50% of our bookings. Simply put, it's about building the best experience when you come directly to us.

We really focus on making sure the live app experience is friction-free, right? Therefore, the average flight booking time is less than a minute. It's actually 50 seconds. This is how much time people spend on our app, and 75% of our trips are made with a single click based on customizing your destination based on the data we have about you.

Um, if you look at the average time it takes a customer to reorder their favorite food, it's only 90 seconds. Therefore, we make sure that coming to Uber doesn't require much effort.

You can come in, you can go out, and thanks to the data we have, you know where you're going, when you're going, etc. We believe we will attract a lot of people directly to our site.

Let's say , I used to work in the travel industry where we relied on companies like Google in this world. I do n't want to go back to that situation. Therefore, I believe that the best-in-class market technologies we are building, and the operational implementation, will lead to more and more people coming to us directly.

We are building our own AI experiences. For example, we have a shopping assistant that we are very excited about, and initial indicators suggest that shopping baskets created via the shopping assistant are almost double the average value of a regular basket .

We are working on an assistant for food delivery services, an assistant for drivers, etc., to ensure that we have the best AI assistants who can help you use our services very quickly.

However, we will be holding discussions with third-party AI agents . We believe this is another opportunity to access our platform. We believe it will be a net positive in terms of demand within the ecosystem.

Based on our services, every AI assistant company talks to us, and we are now actually negotiating the terms of engagement.

The good news here is that in most markets there are two large providers of mobility and two large providers of delivery. I think I have now counted eight different assistants, and I think there will be more than 10 assistants.

Therefore, I believe that the players in our field, in the physical field, and meeting the demands we rely on, and the services we build, are very large services . I believe the demand for our services will be very high.

So, this is something we are really excited about now. It is very small now.

Yes, I think I'll put some numbers on that. We had one of our biggest weeks last week because it was Halloween. So, we achieved approximately 320 million trips on Uber and Uber Eats.

The volumes coming from Uber Eats' AI agents were around 500 orders. Yes, 500 requests in total. As for the delivery service, the total number of trips we completed through agents was only four .

Therefore, we are still in a very early stage, and what we have seen so far is very limited.

Yes, I hear. We hope there will be more momentum. We believe we want to provide services that are accessible to consumers in a fun and easy way. We believe our direct services will be the most enjoyable and convenient, but we will work with these external parties.

This is a very early stage. We want to make sure we don't become dependent on any one player , and I think we are in a very good position in this environment going forward.