Uber has always wanted to be more than just rides. I have a reason to hurry now

For years, Uber has been talking about becoming a super app. Then Waymo started picking up passengers in San Francisco, and the conversation became more urgent. The company is trying to embed itself in the AV industry as a data provider, investor and distribution platform, but its consumer bets may be just as important.

Two weeks ago, Uber held its annual GO-GET product event in New York and announced something its executives have been thinking about for a long time. Through a partnership with Expedia Group, U.S. users can now book hotels within the Uber app, giving them access to more than 700,000 accommodations around the world. Uber One members (the company’s $9.99 monthly subscription tier) receive 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in credit. Later this year, vacation rentals through Vrbo will begin, as will restaurant reservations through OpenTable. In the meantime, the “Shop for Me” feature allows users to order from stores that are not on the platform.

Taken together, these announcements are the clearest picture yet of what Uber has been trying to evoke since at least 2019: that its app with 199 million monthly active users could become the app you use for almost everything.

Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga most clearly explained the company’s thinking at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in San Francisco late last month. He said the super app concept has been around for years in India and Southeast Asia, but the U.S. version has mostly failed by adding services to traffic rather than building a reason for its existence.

What does his answer apply to? Membership. Every time a new category emerges, like food, groceries, and now hotels, there’s a new reason for someone to pay for Uber One. “I take an Uber, go to the airport, get on a plane, take another Uber, go to a hotel, go to a restaurant,” he said. “There are flows that you can actually incorporate.”

Although flights are not yet available, Naga did not rule out the possibility. Uber tried to book flights in Europe a few years ago without success. “Let’s take care of the hotel first,” he said. Financial services also sound like a possibility, with Uber already offering debit cards to drivers in Mexico, but it’s still unclear how far that will go and when. “I would never say never,” Naga said.

Uber isn’t the only company in this race. Airbnb, perhaps the company most directly threatened by Uber’s hotel push, announced its own transportation ambitions in late March. The partnership with Welcome Pickup offers airport transfers in 125 cities across Asia, Europe and Latin America, keeping users within the Airbnb app rather than sending them to Uber. Elon Musk, meanwhile, spent three years pledging to turn X into an “everything app” akin to WeChat, and is now moving closer to his long-held goal. X Money, a banking and payments platform built within a social network, will soon be available to the public. X claims 500 million monthly active users.

The big question is how many super apps the US market will actually support. WeChat works in China partly because the alternatives are a patchwork of inferior options. In the US, people already have an app they like that does most of the things Uber wants to do. Consolidating these within a single platform requires either a compelling reason (e.g. discounts on Uber One) or an experience so seamless that it feels worth switching to.

Uber’s bet is that its installed base is moat. The user has already handed over their credit card. Convincing someone to book a hotel or order from a place they can’t find on Uber Eats is easier than convincing someone to download something new. The company’s latest earnings, reported a few days ago, suggest that Uber Eats may be the most likely basis for that hypothesis. With delivery revenue of $5.07 billion in the first quarter, up 34% year-over-year, the company is arguably its fastest-growing segment and roughly tied with Mobility in terms of total bookings.

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