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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Well, our next guest runs rideshare giant Uber and is visiting Asia seeking new avenues of growth. The company's been successful in many markets in this region, but has also faced regulatory hurdles and local competition. Joining us exclusively now is the Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, joining us this morning, Dara.
So it's been a very busy week for you.
Yes, it has.
You've been Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong. What's been the sort of standout so far, the key takeaways?
Well, the key takeaways for us is growth. The APAC market and, in particular, the North Asia markets as well, they are huge growth markets for us. And if you look, for example, in the rideshare business, over 30% of our global first trips coming into the category come from the APAC region.
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Chapter 2: What key growth markets is Uber focusing on in Asia?
We'll see. I think that certainly Japan has great potential.
They are behind on their regulation.
They are behind on their regulation, but I think that they also understand that with an aging population... There's a real need for transportation, not just in the large cities, but in the rural areas. And, for example, I experienced that personally going to Kaga City and where we have communal rideshare and kind of took a rideshare trip and understood what the needs are there.
So we're talking with various countries, regulatory authorities. I think Japan is going to be a part of it. I certainly hope that Hong Kong is going to be a part of it. Australia, where we were just talking about, is a huge market for us. So we're having those dialogues, and I think that the picture will shape up over the next two years because the technology is definitely getting there.
Speaking of Hong Kong, because we do see the trials that are underway and they're being conducted by Baidu's Apollo Go program. Would you be looking to work with them on that or are you working with them on that?
Baidu is a partner of ours. So we partner with Baidu. We ride, for example, in Abu Dhabi and expanding there. Pony's another partner of ours. So we absolutely expect to be on the road with all three of them. When you look at Chinese autonomous technology and the development there, they are one of the leaders on a global basis.
And for us, we want to partner with the whole autonomous ecosystem to bring this technology to reality.
So just to clarify, you're expecting to ramp up the markets that you're into 10 autonomous driving markets? 10 plus, yes. By next year?
Yes.
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Chapter 3: How is Uber planning to implement robo-taxi services in Asia?
Well, there's nothing secure about the technology space. There's always innovation. And so we just have to move fast. And I say, actually, that the more important factor in Uber is our global coverage. We operate in 70 countries. The demand that we're bringing every day, we've got millions of consumers opening our app all over the world.
And we can point that demand not just to our current driver partners and delivery partners, but as autonomous comes in to autonomous partners. You know, these are very expensive cars. It's a very expensive technology. And you want to amortize the upfront spend against as many transactions as possible.
And Uber certainly is the leader around the world in terms of the demand that we can point to our autonomous partners.
Yeah, when you talk about capital and just general capital raising plans, an interesting move that you made earlier this year was raising $1.2 billion by selling those exchangeable senior bonds linked to your stake in Aurora. A few details on that one. But do you see yourself doing that again in 2026, something similar again?
It was really seen as an innovative and creative way, I guess, to raise money.
Well, we have a very creative team.
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Chapter 4: What regulatory challenges does Uber face in the Asia-Pacific region?
I think the good news for us is we're now free cash flowing close to $10 billion, and we expect that to increase substantially over the next couple of years.
So through a combination of the substantial free cash flow that we have and also monetizing some of the equity stakes that we have in other companies, now it's over $10 billion, we think we have plenty of capital to be able to continue to invest in our autonomous technology partners or...
building out a fleet presence and or vehicles across the autonomous ecosystem so that we can continue to be a leader in the space.
You're well capitalized. That's what I'm taking away from that. But would you look to do something similar with your stakes in DD and Grab in particular?
I think we'll be opportunistic, certainly. We love Grab, and it's a strategic partner of ours. DD, of course, hasn't gone public yet. So to the extent we have an opportunity, we will look to, you know, we call it recycling the investments that we've made. But at the same time, we don't need to do that because the company continues to throw off cash flow. We have a lot of options ahead of us.
Mm-hmm.
I want to talk about also the sparser geographies strategy and the importance of that. Can you maybe spell it out a little bit for people exactly what you mean by that? Because it is interesting as you make sort of a push into lots of different centres, it actually seems to be less the urban centres that are doing well for you as a company.
Well, the urban centers continue to grow, but I do think that we, as I reflect on Uber's growth, we used to be a big city company. And what we're seeing is there's enormous demand for both mobility and delivery outside of the large cities, in the more sparse markets, the suburbs, et cetera. And our growth in the sparse markets is anywhere from two to three times faster than
for mobility and delivery than in the big urban markets, even though the urban markets are growing. At the same time, some governments actually need access to mobility. There isn't great taxi service in some of these rural destinations in Japan. Bus services is also not readily available.
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Chapter 5: Where does Dara Khosrowshahi see the most potential for Uber in Asia?
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