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Uber has surpassed 10 billion completed trips since its founding in 2010. A company blog post said that on June 10, 173 trips and deliveries started simultaneously at 10:12 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, putting it over the 10 billion mark. The milestone shows that, despite a series of scandals, Uber is still well ahead of its main U.S. rival, Lyft.
Over the past year, Uber has faced allegations of sexual harassment among its workforce, a major data breach, multiple federal investigations, and a fatal crash involving one of its prototype cars with self-driving technology. But the company kept growing: Uber’s 10 billionth trip came just over a year after its 5 billionth, notes Engadget.
Uber said the June 10 trips that allowed it to reach the 10 billion mark took place in more than 21 countries on five continents. Unlike its rivals, which are generally limited to a specific country or region, Uber has a truly global network. But sales of its Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Russian operations to Didi Chuxing, Grab, and Yandex, respectively, indicate Uber is losing interest in maintaining that network.
While the China and Southeast Asia are among the world’s largest ride-hailing markets, Didi and Grab haven’t expanded into as many countries as Uber. Lyft is the only ride-hailing company to challenge Uber on its home turf, but Lyft’s operations are limited to the United States and Canada. Lyft also remains a much smaller company than Uber.
Lyft only launched in its first international city (Toronto, Canada) in December 2017, and hit 500 million completed trips in October of that year. Lyft was valued at $15.1 billion after a funding round completed in June, compared to Uber’s $48 billion valuation at the time an investment deal with Japan’s SoftBank was announced in December 2017. That was considered to be a low-ball figure reflecting Uber’s various scandals.
