Uber Earnings: Flywheel Is Strong, but We Still Acknowledge a World Where Autonomy Disrupts the Firm

Key Morningstar Metrics for Uber Technologies

• Fair Value Estimate
  : $85.00
• Morningstar Rating
  : ★★★
• Morningstar Economic Moat Rating
  : Narrow
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating
  : Very High

What We Thought of Uber Technologies’ Earnings

Uber Technologies’ UBER first quarter was strong, beating management’s gross bookings forecast by 2% and effectively meeting analyst expectations for net revenue per FactSet. Revenue would have been higher if not for an accounting change. Uber One added 4 million memberships in the quarter, reaching 50 million.

Why it matters: Top-line momentum and quantifiable network-effect metrics remain strong, reinforcing Uber’s marketplace flywheel. Still, current strength does not guarantee a growing seat at the table in a convenience economy increasingly defined by autonomous vehicles, or AVs. AV risks keep this situation hairy.

• Uber One memberships now account for half of all mobility and food bookings. Uber selectively discloses membership numbers, but the strong growth is a positive. More memberships enhance the network and can keep demand engaged as Uber courts autonomous partnerships.
• Monthly active platform consumers grew at 17% year over year, well above 2023-24 trends.

The bottom line: We maintain our narrow moat rating and our $85 fair value estimate per share as we balance the strength of Uber’s core marketplace, growing rides, and food delivery profitability with our view that AV companies like Waymo and Tesla are willing to bypass Uber in favor of controlling the rider relationship themselves.

• We see the shares as fairly valued, as the market seems to be correctly pricing in both the downside (share loss) and the upside (higher margins) associated with autonomy.
• Uber’s barbell strategy (focusing on both cost-conscious and high-end offerings) has successfully balanced growth with profitability, but the main question about Uber remains its terminal value if AVs dominate the future. We appreciate Uber’s efforts to enable new AV entrants, but Waymo is years ahead, and Waymo-Uber momentum has cooled.

Key stats: Our updated New York City case study shows that Uber’s monetization, or revenue per mile, is still top-of-class on a three-month rolling average.