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For years, Uber talked about becoming a super app. Then Waymo started picking up passengers in San Francisco, and the conversation grew more urgent. The company has been trying to embed itself<\/a> inside the AV industry \u2014 as a data provider, an investor, and a distribution platform \u2014 but the consumer-facing bet may be just as important.<\/p>\n Two weeks ago, Uber held its annual GO-GET product event in New York and announced something its executives had been circling for a long time: users in the U.S. can now book hotels inside the Uber app, through a partnership with Expedia Group, with access to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members \u2014 the company\u2019s subscription tier at $9.99 a month \u2014 get 20% off a rotating list of 10,000 hotels and 10% back in credits. Vacation rentals through Vrbo will follow later this year, along with restaurant reservations via OpenTable. In the meantime, a \u201cShop for Me\u201d feature lets users order from stores that aren\u2019t even on the platform.<\/p>\n The announcements, taken together, were the most concrete picture yet of something Uber has been trying to conjure since at least 2019: that an app with 199 million monthly active users could become the app they use for nearly everything.<\/p>\n Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber\u2019s CTO, offered the clearest explanation of the company\u2019s thinking at TechCrunch\u2019s StrictlyVC event<\/a> late last month in San Francisco. The super app concept has existed for years in India and Southeast Asia, he noted, but U.S. versions have mostly flopped by bolting services onto traffic rather than building toward a reason to stay.<\/p>\n His answer to what fits? Membership. Every new category \u2014 food, groceries, now hotels \u2014 gives someone another reason to pay for Uber One. \u201cI take Uber, go to the airport, take a flight, take another Uber, go to a hotel, go to a restaurant,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a flow you can actually build into it.\u201d<\/p>\n Flights are not available yet, though Naga didn\u2019t rule them out. Uber tried flight booking in Europe years ago without success. \u201cFirst let\u2019s get the hotel things done,\u201d he said. Financial services sound like a possibility too \u2014 Uber already offers a debit card to drivers in Mexico \u2014 though how far that goes, or when, remains unclear. Said Naga: \u201cNever say never.\u201d<\/p>\n Uber isn\u2019t alone in this race. Airbnb, arguably the company most directly threatened by Uber\u2019s hotel push, announced its own transportation ambitions in late March \u2014 a partnership with Welcome Pickups to offer airport transfers in 125 cities across Asia, Europe, and Latin America, structured to keep users inside the Airbnb app rather than sending them to Uber. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has spent three years promising to turn X into an \u201ceverything app\u201d in the WeChat mold, and is now nearing what he describes as a long-stated goal: X Money, a banking and payments platform built inside the social network, is expected to launch publicly soon. X claims 500 million monthly active users.<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> The big question is how many super apps the American market will actually support. WeChat works in China partly because the alternative was a patchwork of inferior options. In the U.S., people already have apps they like for most of what Uber wants to do. Getting them to consolidate inside a single platform requires either a compelling reason \u2014 Uber One\u2019s discounts, say \u2014 or a seamless enough experience that switching feels worth it.<\/p>\n Uber\u2019s bet is that its installed base is the moat. Its users have already handed over a credit card. Convincing them to book a hotel, or order from a store they\u2019d never find on Uber Eats, is an easy lift compared with convincing them to download something new. Its most recent earnings, reported a few days ago, suggest Uber Eats may be the strongest argument for that thesis: delivery revenue grew 34% year over year in the first quarter, to $5.07 billion, making it easily the fastest-growing part of the business and pulling almost even with mobility in gross bookings. <\/p>\n Uber\u2019s stock is still down about 8% from a year ago \u2014 suggesting that Wall Street isn\u2019t fully convinced. But the company says that 50 million<\/a> people are now paying for Uber One, and together they account for roughly half the company\u2019s total bookings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n