Uber: Performance is online, but the threat of Robotaxi remains unresolved

Questioning AI · What is the deeper meaning behind Uber’s cooperation agreement under the threat of autonomous driving?

“International version of Didi” $Uber(UBER.US) released its Q1 2026 quarterly report before the US stock market open on May 6. Overall, performance this quarter remains solid, with key growth and profit indicators—total order volume and adjusted EBITDA—both exceeding expectations, maintaining strong growth momentum and increasing profit margins.

Meanwhile, the company’s guidance for next quarter’s total order volume and adjusted profit also surpasses expectations. Given that Uber’s stock price has already fallen sharply due to the autonomous driving threat, this quarter’s strong performance is undoubtedly commendable. Key points are as follows:

1. Stable volume, rising prices: This quarter, core business (ride-hailing + food delivery) order volume increased 26% year-over-year, significantly faster than last quarter’s 23%, and better than market expectations. However, order volume growth slowed slightly to 20% from 22% last quarter, with the main driver of order value growth being a nearly 5% increase in average ticket price, which is far above previous levels, aided by favorable exchange rates.

2. Strong ride-hailing orders, food delivery growth slightly cooled: Looking at segments, ride-hailing (Mobility) order volume grew 25% YoY, with a 20% growth rate after adjusting for exchange rate benefits, slightly faster than last quarter’s 19%. Dolphin believes the company’s “dumbbell” strategy (pushing both high-end and low-cost products) and its willingness to offer discounts (such as fuel subsidies and passing savings to users) are main reasons for the strong growth in ride-hailing.

Uber Eats order value grew 28%, with a real growth rate of 23% after removing exchange rate effects, down 3 percentage points from last quarter. However, last Q4 marked the peak growth in recent years, so slowdown is not a big issue.

3. Ride-hailing monetization declines, food delivery monetization rises: This quarter, ride-hailing revenue growth slowed to just 5% YoY, with a mere 1% after adjusting for exchange rates, a clear drop. The comprehensive monetization rate (revenue/volume) also fell sharply from about 30% to nearly 26%.

This is mainly due to oil prices rising because of US-Iran conflict, leading the company to provide fuel subsidies to drivers, which is counted as a reduction in revenue. Roughly estimating, total fuel subsidies this quarter should be around $1 billion.

In contrast, food delivery revenue grew 28% after removing exchange rate benefits, slightly slower than last quarter’s 31%, but still solid. The delivery revenue realization rate was 19.5%, up 96 basis points YoY, the largest single-quarter increase since 2023, mainly driven by higher advertising monetization.

4. Core business profit margins continue to improve: On the profit side, the key metric—adjusted EBITDA—reached $2.48 billion, up 33% YoY. Profit margin (as a percentage of order volume) is 4.6%, slightly affected by fuel subsidies, but still increased 26 basis points YoY, though the growth rate has narrowed.

Starting this quarter, the company shifted its main profit metric to adjusted operating profit, reasoning that as the company matures, profits should not be overly adjusted. The adjusted operating profit margin for ride-hailing is 7.7%, up 0.2 percentage points YoY, indicating that lower insurance costs and other benefits outweigh the drag from fuel subsidies.

For food delivery, the adjusted operating profit margin rose from 3.3% last year to 3.7%, a larger increase, consistent with the higher monetization rate this quarter.

Overall, the profit margins of both core businesses are actually rising, but the company’s overall profit margin has hardly improved, mainly due to the higher proportion of lower-margin food delivery.

5. Premium savings reinvested into growth: From a cost perspective, gross margin reached 45%, up sharply by about 5 percentage points YoY, significantly exceeding market expectations. Despite no fuel subsidies this quarter, gross margin still increased substantially, mainly thanks to the higher monetization rate of food delivery, and also benefiting from lower policy costs.

However, total expenses increased sharply by 19% YoY, with all expense categories growing rapidly. Marketing, R&D, and administrative costs all rose over 20%, with even basic operating expenses up at least 16%.

This indicates that the company has indeed used saved premiums, along with fuel subsidies and increased spending, to sustain its strong growth momentum and hedge against autonomous driving threats.

Dolphin Research’s past Uber analyses:

2026 Feb 5 Financial Report Review “Uber: Good Results but Plunging? The Robotaxi ‘Sword’ Hangs High”

2026 Feb 5 Conference Call “Uber (Summary): 3P Model Will Be the Final Winner in Autonomous Rides”

2025 Nov 5 Financial Report Review “Uber: No Issues with Results, But Robotaxi Fears Loom?”

2025 Nov 5 Conference Call “Uber (Summary): Deliberately Slowing Profit Growth, AV Won’t Be Profitable for Long”

2025 Aug 7 Financial Review “Weak Rides, Strong Delivery—Uber at a Crossroads?”

2025 Aug 7 Conference Call “Uber (Summary): Autonomous Rides Far from Profitability, 50% Cash Return to Shareholders”

2025 May 8 Financial Review “Fearless in Adversity, Uber as ‘Overseas Didi’ Still Strong”

2025 May 8 Conference Call “Uber (Summary): Don’t Expect Rides Growth to Slow in H2”

2025 Feb 6 Financial Review “Uber: FSD Rumors, Small Mistakes, Big Penalties”

2025 Feb 6 Conference Call “Uber (Summary): Autonomous Rides Will Be a Small Share in 5 Years”

2024 Nov 1 Financial Review “Uber: 10% Drop, What Went Wrong for the Star?”

2024 Nov 1 Conference Call “Uber 3Q24 Earnings Call Summary”

Coverage:

2022 Nov 21 “Traversing the ‘Bittersweet’ Pandemic, What’s Next for Uber?”

2022 Oct 14 “Through Pandemic and Inflation, the Hidden Killer Behind Uber’s Luck”

Disclaimers and disclosures follow.