Recently, Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) took some steps towards its goal of becoming a travel "super app." The company announced last week that they would add tickets for trains, buses, planes, as well as car rentals to their app in the United Kingdom later this year.
If the plan goes well, then it will likely expand to other countries. Uber will not offer the travel services, but they will permit users to book services through the app.
Since Uber services in the United Kingdom are so large, the move to expand on their services is a monumental moment for Uber. "You have been able to book rides, bikes, boat services and scooters on the Uber app for a number of years, so adding trains and coaches is a natural progression," said Uber General Manager for U.K. Jamie Heywood in a statement. "Later this year we plan to incorporate flights, and in the future hotels, by integrating leading partners into the Uber app to create a seamless door-to-door travel experience."
According to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, he wanted them to become the "Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) of transportation" when he initially came on board to the company. Nowadays, however, it is uncertain as to how much Uber will compete with other travel booking services. But it appears as though Uber could possibly be ahead of other competitors, since they provide types of services that other companies don't. One of these service types includes offering rides from hotels to airports.
In addition to booking travel services, Uber plans to experience an "identity shift", Gizmodo explains, in a variety of ways. One of these ways is through allowing people to purchase Eurostar train tickets through the Uber app. Eurostar permits people to travel from London to Paris among other cities through the Channel Tunnel.
Because of outside factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Uber has been experiencing delays on its "super app" goals. "It's fair to say that Covid made it a little bit hard for us to progress as quickly as we would like," Heywood informed The Financial Times. But Uber surely will catch up to its goals in due time.