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For years, Uber has talked about becoming a “super app.” With Waymo picking up passengers in San Francisco, the urgency around Uber’s strategy has intensified. The company has been trying to embed itself in the autonomous-vehicle (AV) industry as a data provider, investor, and distribution platform, but its consumer-facing push may be just as important.
Two weeks ago, Uber held its annual GO-GET product event in New York and announced that users in the U.S. can now book hotels inside the Uber app through a partnership with Expedia Group. Uber said the offering provides access to more than 700,000 properties worldwide.
Uber One members, Uber’s subscription tier priced at $9.99 per month, receive 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and get 10% back in credits. Uber also said vacation rentals through Vrbo will follow later this year, along with restaurant reservations via OpenTable. In the meantime, a “Shop for Me” feature allows users to order from stores that are not even on the platform.
The announcements reflect a strategy Uber has been building toward since at least 2019: turning an app with 199 million monthly active users into a platform people use for many everyday needs.
Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga explained the approach at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in San Francisco late last month. He said super app concepts have worked for years in India and Southeast Asia, but U.S. attempts have often failed by simply adding services to existing traffic rather than creating a reason for users to remain in the app.
In his view, the key is membership. Each new category—food, groceries, and now hotels—adds another reason to pay for Uber One. “I take Uber, go to the airport, take a flight, take another Uber, go to a hotel, go to a restaurant,” he said. “There is a flow you can actually build into it.”
Flights are not available yet, though Naga did not rule them out. Uber previously tried flight booking in Europe without success. “First let’s get the hotel things done,” he said.
Financial services are also described as a possibility. Uber already offers a debit card to drivers in Mexico, but how far that could expand—or when—was not specified. Naga said: “Never say never.”
Uber is not alone in the race. Airbnb, which is arguably most directly threatened by Uber’s hotel push, announced transportation ambitions in late March. It partnered with Welcome Pickups to offer airport transfers in 125 cities across Asia, Europe, and Latin America, designed to keep users inside the Airbnb app rather than sending them to Uber.
Separately, Elon Musk has spent three years promoting X as an “everything app” in the WeChat mold. X says it is nearing its long-stated goal of launching X Money, a banking and payments platform built inside the social network, expected to launch publicly soon. X claims 500 million monthly active users.
The central question is how many super apps the U.S. market can support. WeChat’s success in China is partly attributed to the lack of strong alternatives, while U.S. users already have apps they prefer for many of the functions Uber wants to combine.
Uber’s strategy relies on its installed base as a moat. The company argues that because users already use Uber and have already provided a credit card, booking a hotel or ordering from stores outside the Uber Eats ecosystem is a smaller step than downloading a new app.
Uber’s latest earnings, reported a few days ago, suggest Uber Eats may be the strongest evidence for that thesis. Delivery revenue grew 34% year over year in the first quarter to $5.07 billion, making it the fastest-growing part of the business and bringing it almost even with mobility in gross bookings.
Uber’s stock is still down about 8% from a year ago, indicating Wall Street is not fully convinced. However, Uber says 50 million people are now paying for Uber One, and together they account for roughly half of the company’s total bookings.
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