Uber shares fall amid fears of slowing US consumer demand

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Uber’s shares fell on Wednesday after it posted slightly weaker than expected gross bookings for the first quarter, raising fears of slowing US consumer demand amid growing economic uncertainty under President Donald Trump.

The ride-hailing app said that gross bookings, a measure of customers’ total spending across all its business units, grew 14 per cent to $42.8bn in that period, falling just short of analysts’ expectations of $43bn, according to Visible Alpha data.

Uber’s shares were down by about 4 per cent in pre-market trading in New York.

The miss clouded Uber’s upbeat outlook for the current quarter. The group said gross bookings for the three months ending June 30 would be between $45.8bn and $47.3bn, compared with analysts’ estimates of $45.8bn, according to Visible Alpha data. Its forecast for adjusted earnings was also ahead of expectations.

A strong US dollar hit Uber’s first-quarter gross bookings by roughly $1.7bn, with the challenge to persist to a lesser extent in the current quarter, the company said. Some trips have also become more expensive due to higher insurance costs which Uber is passing on to consumers, it added.

Analysts were looking for signs that US consumers were dialling down spending on ride-hailing and food delivery in anticipation of higher prices spurred by tariffs.

Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi told investors the company was watching closely for any indication of weaker consumer sentiment. “Right now, we don’t see any signal whatsoever. And hopefully it will remain the same,” he added.

He said the company was focused on lowering prices and expanding its autonomous vehicle partnerships.

Uber’s latest results come as the food and grocery delivery market is in the midst of consolidation.

Uber rival DoorDash announced plans to acquire London-listed Deliveroo for £2.9bn on Tuesday, while Prosus — the European investment arm of South African group Naspers — struck a €4.1bn deal to take Europe’s biggest food delivery group Just Eat Takeaway private in February.

On Tuesday, Uber announced an agreement to acquire an 85 per cent stake in Turkish food and grocery delivery platform Trendyol Go for $700mn.

Khosrowshahi said that autonomous vehicle technology was the “single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber”. The group has made partnerships central to its approach in the autonomous vehicle space after it sold its own self-driving research unit to Aurora Innovation in 2020.

Uber has signed 18 deals globally with a suite of robotaxi providers, car manufacturers and autonomous vehicle developers including Germany’s Volkswagen, China’s Pony.ai and WeRide, and UK-based Wayve.

“It is coming fast and furious and the and the innovation development there is pretty exciting for us,” Khosrowshahi said.

He added its partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo in Austin, where the company in March started to roll out a managed fleet of self-driving Jaguar I-PACE vehicles, had exceeded its expectations.

Uber is managing and dispatching about 100 vehicles in Austin, with plans to roll out hundreds in the coming months as well as launching in Atlanta in the summer.

“Uber’s scale is a fairly compelling piece if these companies want to commercialise,” said Deepak Mathivanan, senior equity analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. “We previously argued for Uber to take a more direct role . . .[but] the developments that we are seeing in the space warrant a platform strategy.”