Uber has always wanted to be more than a ride; now it has reason to hurry

For years, Uber has been talking about being the best app. Then Waymo started transporting passengers in San Francisco, and the conversation grew rapidly. The company has been trying to embed itself within the AV industry – as a data provider, investor, and distribution platform – but the bet towards the consumer may be just as important.

Two weeks ago, Uber held its annual GO-GET product event in New York and announced something that its managers have been talking about for a long time: US users can now book hotels within the Uber app, in partnership with the Expedia Group, with access to more than 700,000 destinations worldwide. Uber One members — the company’s subscription tier for $9.99 a month — get 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in credits. Vacation rentals through Vrbo will follow later this year, along with restaurant reservations through OpenTable. Currently, the “Shop for me” feature allows users to order from stores that are not even on the platform.

The announcements, taken together, were the most concrete picture yet of something Uber has been trying to put together since at least 2019: that an app with 199 million active users can be the app they use for almost everything.

Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber’s CTO, provided a clear explanation of the company’s thinking at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event late last month in San Francisco. The concept of a high-performance app has been around for years in India and Southeast Asia, he noted, but US versions have become more like bolts of traffic than building a reason to stay.

His answer to that match? Membership. Every new category — food, grocery, now hotels — gives someone another reason to pay for Uber One. “I take an Uber, I go to the airport, I take a plane, I take another Uber, I go to a hotel, I go to a restaurant,” he said. “There’s a flow you can build on.”

The planes have not yet been found, although Naga has not made a decision. Uber tried to book flights in Europe years ago without success. “Let’s fix things in the hotel first,” he said. Financial services also sounds like a possibility — Uber already offers a debit card to drivers in Mexico — though how far that goes, or when, remains unclear. Naga said: “Never say no.”

Uber is not alone in this race. Airbnb, arguably the company most threatened by Uber’s hotel push, announced its travel ambitions in late March – a partnership with Welcome Pickups to offer airport transfers in 125 cities in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, designed to keep users within the Airbnb app rather than sending them to Uber. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has spent three years promising to turn X into an “everything app” in the shape of WeChat, and now he is approaching what he describes as a long-term stated goal: IX Money, a platform for banking and payments built within the social network, is expected to be publicly launched soon. UX wants 500 million active users.

The big question is how many great apps the American market will support. WeChat works in China in part because it was a patchwork of low-end options. In the US, people already have apps that they like more than what Uber wants to do. Bringing them together within a single platform requires a compelling reason — Uber One discounts, say — or a seamless enough experience to make the switch seem worthwhile.

Uber’s bet is that its installed base is a drain. Its users have already given it a credit card. Convincing them to book a hotel, or order from a grocery store that they would never find on Uber Eats, is an easy ride compared to convincing them to pick up something new. Its latest earnings, reported a few days ago, suggest that Uber Eats may be a strong argument for that thesis: delivery revenue grew by 34% year-on-year in the first quarter, to $5.07 billion, facilitating the fastest-growing part of the business and pulling almost even from travel in total bookings.

Uber’s stock is still down about 8% from a year ago — suggesting Wall Street isn’t fully convinced. But the company says 50 million people now pay for Uber One, and together they account for nearly half of the company’s total bookings.