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Uber (UBER) Bets On Drones As Its Delivery Engine Accelerates

Maham Fatima

Wed, August 19, 2026 at 3:10 PM GMT+3 5 min read

• UBER -0.44%

On August 17, Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) announced a partnership with drone delivery company Zipline to bring autonomous drone delivery to Uber Eats customers across the United States, alongside a strategic investment in the company. The deal is Uber's second major drone bet after last year's tie-up with Flytrex, and it lands as the ride-hailing giant tries to convince investors its business is stronger than its stock price suggests. Shares are down roughly 9% this year even as revenue, profit, and user growth have all moved in the right direction.

Bull Case: Growth Keeps Compounding On Every Front

Uber's core business kept expanding through the second quarter. Monthly active platform consumers climbed 16% year over year to 208 million, and trips rose 18% over the same period. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told shareholders that Uber added more first-time users over the past 12 months than in any period over the previous five years, a sign the platform is still finding new riders rather than just retaining old ones. Gross bookings, the total dollar value spent across rides, delivery, and freight, jumped 24% year over year to $58 billion in the second quarter, and management is guiding for at least $58.3 billion in the third.

Delivery is doing much of the heavy lifting. The segment's revenue grew 28% year over year in the second quarter, compared to just 1% growth in transportation, and delivery now accounts for more than a third of total sales. That momentum is why the Zipline partnership matters. The companies are targeting 1 million drone deliveries per day by the end of 2029, with the first flights beginning later this year in Zipline's existing US markets before expanding to dozens of additional cities. Zipline already operates on four continents, has completed 2 million deliveries, and was valued at $7.6 billion after raising $800 million earlier this year, a well-funded partner rather than an unproven startup.

Uber is chasing a similar playbook with autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars are already active in seven cities on the platform, and Khosrowshahi said that could more than double to 15 by the end of 2026, backed by roughly $10 billion Uber plans to deploy to help its autonomous partners scale over the next few years.

Bear Case: The Costs Behind The Convenience

None of this has translated into the stock price. Uber shares are down about 9% year to date, even as the fundamentals have moved in the opposite direction. When a company's results improve while its stock falls, it usually means investors are pricing in risks that have not shown up in the numbers yet.

Those risks are visible in the cost structure. Of the $58 billion in gross bookings Uber processed in the second quarter, $25 billion went straight to its 10.2 million drivers, still its single largest expense. Replacing that cost with autonomous vehicles and drones is not free either. The $10 billion Uber is committing to self-driving partners, plus whatever it is paying to back Zipline, means the company is spending heavily upfront to chase savings that may take years to show up. Uber has also entered a business combination agreement with Delivery Hero, one more moving piece to track as it juggles both ambitions.

Even the topline numbers carry an asterisk. Second quarter revenue rose 12% year over year to $14.2 billion, but that growth could have been 20% if not for a change in United Kingdom tax rules that reclassified cost of sales as contra-revenue. And the drone rollout is still mostly a promise: the 1 million-deliveries-per-day target sits four years out, and Uber has not disclosed how much it is investing in Zipline.

What The Smart Money Sees

Institutional interest in Uber is building. Hedge fund ownership rose from 147 funds to 153 over the past two quarters, a modest but real increase in conviction. Short interest sits at just 2.41% of float, pointing to little organized skepticism toward the stock. As of August 18, Uber trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 22.37, a level that assumes steady but not runaway growth ahead. This mix suggests the market has not fully priced in Uber's recent execution.

A Stock Still Finding Its Altitude

Uber's second-quarter numbers and its new drone delivery bet both point toward a company expanding faster than its stock price reflects. But the cost of getting there, from $25 billion paid to drivers to a $10 billion pledge for autonomous partners, is real now, while the payoff from drones and self-driving cars is still years out. For the growth story to keep compounding, delivery needs to keep outrunning transportation the way it has. For the skeptics, the test is whether Uber can hit targets like 1 million daily drone deliveries without the costs eating into the margins it has only recently found.

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