Uber sets sight on becoming travel super app

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7th April 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning After a three week battle in the High Court, yesterday Ed Sheeran emerged victorious following accusations that he was a music magpie over his hit song ‘Shape of You’. Sheeran was involved in the dispute with two songwriters who claimed that the 2017 tune rips off parts of their song ‘Oh Why’.
And the stakes were high: ‘Shape of You’ is the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify, with more than three billion plays.

Today's stories

Uber+: Uber sets sight on becoming travel super app
Checking out: Speedy checkout startup folds after burning through $120m

TRANSPORT
Uber sets sight on becoming travel super app

What’s going on?
Ride hailing giant Uber is set to broaden its travel services by launching long-distance bookings on its UK app. Later this summer users will be able to book trains, coaches, flights and even hotels on the app as it bids to become a one stop shop for consumer travel needs.

Why is this important?

Since launching with a taxi service in 2009, Uber has expanded to a range of other modes of transport. Depending on the city, users can book bikes, scooters, motorbikes, boats and even helicopters through the app as well as food delivery through Uber Eats.

Yesterday the company unveiled plans to invest further into travel as part of a strategy to move towards a fully-fledged transport booking system or travel super app. This plan had been in the works since 2018 but was postponed due to the pandemic and the accompanying surge in its food delivery business.

Uber won’t provide these travel services itself but it will allow users to book them through its app following software integrations with airlines, bus and rail operators, and car rental companies. It will pilot the scheme in the UK, one of its largest markets outside the US, but it could roll out to other countries later if it goes well.

Zooming out

Uber’s ambitions to create one app to serve all transport needs could be just the start of even loftier goals.

Super apps - single portal to a wide range of digital products and services – are becoming increasingly popular in Asia with apps like WeChat and Alipay bundling together online messaging, social media, shopping and transport.

These apps have quickly become ingrained into users’ daily lives. It is not unusual for a WeChat user in China to set up a date with a friend via instant messaging, make dinner reservations, book movie tickets, order a taxi and pay for every transaction along the way, all using one single app.

Other stories to keep you in the loop

UK announces ban on Russian coal
UK’s top 0.1% earners have annual income of over half a million
Government to nationalise part of electricity grid to help meet climate goals
Twitter working on edit button but says idea did not come from Elon Musk
Calories now appear on menus in large restaurant chains

FINTECH
Speedy checkout startup folds after burning through $120m

Online checkout startup Fast has become the latest high-profile venture-backed firm to go bust only three years after launching.

Last valued at $580m, Fast raised $124m from big name investors included payments giant Stripe.

The company wanted to revolutionise the online shopping process by creating a one-click checkout button. But it was debatable how much time Fast really saved online shoppers already used to the auto-fill functions that already exist on internet browsers.

Fast failed to find any large customers outside its investors’ networks and only generated $600,000 last year, all while burning through more than $10m a month.

Founder Domm Holland has a colourful business track record. He bought the domain Qant.as for $20 and reportedly sold it to Qantas Airways for $1.3m. His next company, a towing service, went bankrupt after a legal dispute with the Australian government.

Fortunately for Fast’s 400 employees the tight labour market in Silicon Valley means they won’t be unemployed for long. Buy-now-pay-later company Affirm said it would hire the “vast majority” of Fast’s engineers.

Stat of the day

In 2021 a record 236,000 people globally applied for internships at Goldman Sachs, a jump of 16% with applicants’ success rate of 1.5%.

Interesting links from around the web

90 ways to survive the cost of living crisis
The best (and worst) fancy hot cross bun flavours for Easter 2022
10 tips for getting a new job

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Uber sets sight on becoming travel super app

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