Profitability growth expected to outpace revenue for years
Uber's CFO discussed the resilience of its delivery business across income cohorts, high growth in grocery and retail, and a strategy to invest for durable growth, partly by driving cross-platform utilization. The call also covered the ramp-up of autonomous vehicle partnerships, highlighting high vehicle utilization with Waymo. Uber's delivery growth is steady across all income cohorts, helped by a 50% YoY increase in merchant-funded offers that keep prices affordable.
Buzzberg readProfitability growth expected to outpace revenue for yearsUber's CFO discussed the resilience of its delivery business across income cohorts, high growth in grocery and retail, and a strategy to invest for durable growth, partly by driving cross-platform utilization. The call also covered the ramp-up of autonomous vehicle partnerships, highlighting high vehicle utilization with Waymo. Uber's delivery growth is steady across all income cohorts, helped by a 50% YoY increase in merchant-funded offers that keep prices affordable.Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Uber's CFO discussed the resilience of its delivery business across income cohorts, high growth in grocery and retail, and a strategy to invest for durable growth, partly by driving cross-platform utilization. The call also covered the ramp-up of autonomous vehicle partnerships, highlighting high vehicle utilization with Waymo. Uber's delivery growth is steady across all income cohorts, helped by a 50% YoY increase in merchant-funded offers that keep prices affordable.
Grocery and retail segment is now at a $12 billion run rate, growing faster than core delivery, with continued merchant additions expected.
Management plans to reinvest in growth opportunities, expecting profitability to rise faster than top-line, but with less margin expansion than before.
A new focus on cross-platform utilization aims to increase user engagement, as multi-product users spend 3x more.
Revenue$14.366B
reported
EPS$0.14
reported
Gross margin39.57%
reported
Op margin12.35%
reported
What changed this quarter
01
Margins
Profitability growth expected to outpace revenue for years
Reported gross margin was 39.57%, reinforcing the quarter's better-than-guided profitability.
02
Autonomous
AV rides targeted in 10+ cities by end of 2026
Uber's delivery growth is steady across all income cohorts, helped by a 50% YoY increase in merchant-funded offers that keep prices affordable.
03
Grocery/Delivery
Grocery and retail now run at $12 billion annual rate
Grocery and retail segment is now at a $12 billion run rate, growing faster than core delivery, with continued merchant additions expected.
04
Cross-platform
Cross-platform users spend 3x more on Uber
Management plans to reinvest in growth opportunities, expecting profitability to rise faster than top-line, but with less margin expansion than before.
AI, capex & demand read
AI
Platform & monetization
Management positioned autonomous vehicles as a solved technology and Uber's platform as the commercial winner; expects AV availability in 10+ cities by end-2026 and cites Waymo utilization as validation of Uber's demand pool.
Demand
Bookings & conversion
Merchant-funded offers up over 50% year over year. The CFO repeatedly emphasized durable growth, cross-platform advantages, and Uber's strong position in AV commercialization, while acknowledging a deliberate moderation in margin expansion.
Tone · Confident
The CFO repeatedly emphasized durable growth, cross-platform advantages, and Uber's strong position in AV commercialization, while acknowledging a deliberate moderation in margin expansion.
Supply-chain alpha
A1
Uber's grocery and retail business is at a $12 billion run rate and growing faster than its overall delivery business, and it is using merchant-funded offers (up 50% YoY) to keep affordability high.
“That business is now running at a $12 billion run rate. It's been growing meaningfully faster than delivery... merchant funded offers are up over 50% year on year.”
Cross-platform utilization is a new focus area, where using more than one Uber product increases user spend by 3x. This is expected to be a major growth driver.
“we missed opportunities to optimize across the platform... when you use more than one of our products, your retention is higher and you spend more on the platform in general. I think it's a you spend 3x more.”
Waymo vehicles on Uber are generating more trips than almost all human drivers, a strong indicator of high utilization and economic viability for deploying more vehicles.
“So we're operating with Waymo in Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. And I think that our kind of the key metric that both of us look at is that utilization metric. And that utilization metric has been extraordinarily high.”
We're a little bit over, but any thoughts or details that you can share in terms of what your partnership with Waymo has yielded? Because I think what that's yielded in Austin as well as Atlanta.
Sure. So we're operating with Waymo in Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. And I think that our kind of the key metric that both of us look at is that utilization metric. And that utilization metric has been extraordinarily high. Those vehicles are busier than... 99.9% of Uber drivers in terms of the number of trips per day that they're doing. And for us, that's sort of that proof point that we need to know that the platform provides the right level of demand because we can aggregate that demand. And in the end, We know this from our 15 years of experience. Consumers want to get from A to B. How they get there is a secondary consideration. The price they pay is really what's most important. And that is why you've seen so much effort from us, not only on maintaining the affordability of UberX, but investing in low-cost products. Because we know that that's what drives demand. What drives demand is how I get there at what cost versus the vehicle that takes me there.
Amazon is stepping up efforts in grocery delivery, potentially increasing competitive intensity and consumer incentives in the category.
“I think you brought up groceries. So I think it's go time for Amazon now, it sounds like. They've been building the infrastructure for the last couple of years. They've done some things to lure the customers back.”
Yeah. I think you brought up groceries. So I think it's go time for Amazon now, it sounds like. They've been building the infrastructure for the last couple of years. They've done some things to lure the customers back. So it sounds like they're now going to step up their efforts in the category. So why should investors not worry about the competitive intensity here? And as a result, there's going to be impacts to your business. Maybe the consumer incentives go up. There's going to be other factors here. So help us think through that and how the environment might change. Sure, sure.
Uber's grocery and retail business is at a $12 billion run rate and growing faster than its overall delivery business, and it is using merchant-funded offers (up 50% YoY) to keep affordability high.