Uber has always wanted to be more than travel; now there is reason to hurry

For years, Uber has been talking about being a super app. Then Waymo started picking up passengers in San Francisco, and the conversation became even more urgent. It was a company trying to position himself Within the AV industry—as a data provider, investor and distribution platform—but the consumer-facing bet can be just as important.

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

Taken together, the announcements were the most concrete picture Uber has tried to predict since at least 2019: an app with 199 million monthly active users could become the app they use for almost everything.

Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga provided the clearest explanation of the company’s thinking in TechCrunch. The StrictlyVC event in San Francisco late last month. He noted that the super app concept has been around for years in India and Southeast Asia, but the US versions have largely floundered by crowding out services rather than creating a reason to stick around.

What does his answer correspond to? Membership. Each new category — food, groceries, now hotels — gives someone another reason to pay for Uber One. “I take an Uber, I go to the airport, I take a flight, I take another Uber, I go to a hotel, I go to a restaurant,” he said. “There’s a flow you can really build into it.”

Flights are not yet available, although Naga has not ruled them out. Uber tried and failed to book a flight in Europe years ago. “Let’s do the work in the hotel first,” he said. Financial services also sound like a possibility — Uber already offers a debit card to drivers in Mexico — though it’s unclear how far that will go or when. Naga said, “Never say never.”

Uber is not alone in this race. Airbnb, arguably the company most threatened by Uber’s loss of hotels, announced its transportation ambitions in late March — a partnership with Welcome Pickups to offer airport pickups in 125 cities across Asia, Europe and Latin America, designed to keep users on the Airbnb app instead of sending them to Uber. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has promised to turn Xi into a WeChat-style “everything app” within three years, and is now closing in on his long-held goal: X Money, a banking and payments platform built within the social network, is expected to go public soon. X claims to have 500 million monthly active users.

The big question is how many super programs the American market will actually support. WeChat worked in China in part because the alternative consisted of inferior options. People in the US already have apps where they like most of what Uber wants to do. Getting them to converge on a single platform requires either a compelling reason—say, Uber One’s discounts—or an experience seamless enough to make the switch feel worth it.

Uber’s bet is that its installed base is moat. Its users have already handed over their credit card. Convincing them to book a hotel or order from a store they would never find on Uber Eats is easy compared to convincing them to download something new. Its most recent earnings, reported a few days ago, suggest that Uber Eats might be the strongest argument for that thesis: delivery revenue rose 34% year-over-year in the first quarter to $5.07 billion, making it easily the fastest-growing part of the business, and barely trailed by the move in total orders.

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