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I think, you know, the streets kind of mild quickly focused on growth, the slow down in growth. But I think what's interesting about Uber and in its multi offerings, right, is that that can be different in different geographies. Was there somewhere specifically in the world where ride sharing slowed down and you can identify a reason for it, or there were pockets where you were stronger in particular businesses in certain countries around the world.
Actually, the growth for US this quarter has been remarkably consistent with the last quarter. Trip growth. Trips came in three billion trips in the quarter, which is a pretty extraordinary number, up eighteen percent on a year on year basis. Where you did see a slowdown is on growth bookings growth. Gross bookings growth slowed down a bit from Q four, and that was essentially because of price. You know, we think as a company the best way to grow is
to increase audience, increase your frequency. Our audience was up fourteen percent, frequencies was up three percent. But as we saw the opportunity to reduce increases in pricing, especially as it related to insurance costs in the US, which have been increasing at pretty extraordinary rates. It forced us to pass on those cost increases to consumers. We're seeing the increasing insurance costs start to modulate. You know, we now give incentives to our drivers to drive more safely. We
give them a safety score, so to speak. There has been some insurance reform in a couple of states and that's essentially allowed us to reduce any increases in pricing. Pricing was flat year on year in Q one versus last quarter, or was up four percent. We think that's actually very healthy for the consumer. And what we're able to do is not pass on these price increases but
really increased profitability. Profitability was one point nine billion dollars in EBIT a thirty five percent year on year record free cash flow as well. So we're very very happy with the growth that we're seeing and hopefully there'll be more to come.
Let's just talk about the leavers to pull in the growth that you're seeing and indeed in margins, because this economic environment doesn't make it feel like any more pricing can be passed on to a consumer. Is that what you're feeling, Well, it's not.
I do think that we have passed on pricing to the consumer and the business as you have you seen, has scaled really well. We just want to do everything that we can to keep everyday low prices for the consumer, both in mobility and delivery, to really drive that frequency growth. Frequency now in terms of engagement with our platform is six transactions per month on average. It continues to grow. And for example, one of the areas that we're really
focused on is our Uber one membership program. We got over thirty million members. It gives you a discount to use Uber more. So again, the more we can pass on discounts to the consumers, the more they become attached to the platform, both in rides and delivery, the better long term growth we've got ahead of us.
There are I'm a loyal Uber one subscriber and I think I see I think I see the net benefit right on top of what I spend to b one and I'm in that key category of US ride share, which is so profitable for you. What I think would help the audience understand Uber's business better is is that something the boost margins for you Uber one or is
it another incentive? I also get sort of the AMEX credit card benefit each month, right, and it's really hard to understand that as a mechanism for Uber to drive profit or if you're just giving more away.
Well, it absolutely is driving profit in that the average consumer becomes more profitable for us in dollar terms once they become a member, so members are worth more. It is driving long term profitability. Now there is a hit to profit margins, right, which is the for that consumer. We're passing on savings to you. And what happens is is that the Uber one member starts transacting much more.
On average, Uber one members transact three times more than non members, They retain fifteen percent higher, they tend to cross shop a lot more. About half of our Uber one members use both their mobility product and our delivery product as well. But they're doing so because of the savings. But then what we're doing now is we're also introducing experiential benefits, so you get a priority dispatch, for example in airports as a benefit of being an Uber one member.
So when you look long term, it absolutely is driving revenue growth, is driving booking's growth, is driving profitability growth. But we do give up some margins to that member to keep them kind of working with us, and we're definitely seeing it in terms of frequency and the amount of spend on a platform.
Dar let's talk about airports. Let's talk about international travelers a little bit more, because Americans are traveling and they're spending elsewhere, and you'll see it coming up in your data. What about people coming here in America and are you seeing Canadians others starting to shun trips.
Yeah, so our airport's business and travel business continues to be a real star in our portfolio. Airports has consistently been growing. Airport trips tend to be more premium, so you have more comfort cars or black cars as well. But we are seeing it effect in terms of the international traveler coming into the US. Canada, for example, Canada travel coming into the US was weaker than Canada to
travel to other parts of the world. The great thing about our position is, you know, we're kind of capturing that business. Anyway, if they go to the UK, if they go to France, they if they go to many of the countries in which we operate, we're still going to there's still going to be uber customers and they're still going to get that air per pickup. But those airport pickups internationally growing faster than the airport pickups locally, we are seeing that trend.
I want to go globe a little bit more as well when it comes to potential M and A opportunities because we're looking at what's just occurred in the UK door dash stuffing up delivery for example, you're talking about the cross pollination of driver to delivery. Are you thinking doubling down on delivery anymore? Inorganic growth rather than just organic?
Well, I think what's a great accomplishment of the team here at Uber is that the vast majority of our growth has been organically. We established ourselves globally and now seventy plus country countries organically. We built our European business from the ground up. We started the business there and we also started Uber Eats organically as well. So the capability of this team to innovate and to be a big scale company but then grow businesses from scratch is
pretty extraordinary. We now see. We've always said that the advantage that we have as a company is we are globe in nature, and we compete with a bunch of subscale local players, and we're multi platform. We have both rides and the eats business feeding each other. With this Uber one membership program that is really second to none, and we're seeing the competitor, the competitors having to go out and acquire companies inorganically. I think it shows that
our strategy is working. I'd always rather innovate them by and I think Uber is a kind of company that is continuing to innovate in all the sectors that we're in.
That applies to autonomous driving or a future robotaxi service, right. You know, Uber positions itself as a distribution platform and fleet manager. So in the first instance, there are how do you react to that partnership between Wai Moo and Toyota and how do you think that that will serve Uber's platform going forward.
Yeah, we absolutely believe in the power of partnership and we're incredibly bullish about the possibilities of av You know, this is going to be a multi trillion dollar opportunity. Av's are going to be safer than humans. We absolutely believe we need superhuman safety as it relates to av's and we have a great partnership with Weimo. Weimo for us. We launch in Austin. It's been an incredibly successful partnership.
We're about to launch in Atlanta as well. So when we see these partnerships of Weimo, let's say, with Toyota, to bring the Weimo driver to you know, hopefully every single Toyota or personally owned vehicles, we think that's a great thing. It's a great thing in terms of vehicles being safer on the streets. But to the extent that those Toyotas are bought by fleets, we think that we as a distribution partner, can really drive the most utilization.
We think those autonomous toyotas could be on the Uber network and based on what we're seeing in Austin with Weimo, if they're on the Uber network, they are going to be super, super busy.
What are you seeing in Austin is a case study DAR in terms of the percentage of rides completed in that geofense geography that are robotaxi versus human driven. And it's an expensive enterprise, but what's the margin profile like of an autonomous ride versus a human driven ride.
Yeah. Absolutely, so we're very encouraged by the launch. It is still early. We have about one hundred vehicles on the road and that's increasing every week as the operations continue to evolve. What we're seeing is very very high
utilization of these vehicles. The average WEIMO vehicle on Uber is busier than ninety nine percent of human drivers in terms of completed trips per vehicle per week, which is pretty extraordinary, and we think that there's a potential for it to grow as a percentage of our total rides. It's still a small percentage, but that's because we don't have enough vehicles on the road. So I think as a vehicle count expands, it will be a higher percentage
of our overall business. And then in terms of margins, today autonomous vehicles are very expensive. We invest, along with Uber significantly in safety. So the margins of an autonomous vehicle in terms of the commercialization of that business, are lower than the margins of our base business. But we always believe that you've got to invest in innovation. You know, Uber each started as an unprofitable enterprise. For years now
it's making billions of dollars. Margins continue to increase, So at the beginning stages of any enterprise in partnership, you've got to invest. We are in investment mode and autonomous and with a portfolio that we can have, we can invest in innovation, but at the same time deliver record breaking profits, you know, quarter after quarter, year after year.
How do you want to place yourself in that value chain as well? A little bit, Dara, because your very asset light, but will you have to invest more in the infrastructure and the offering of charging and also you're going outside of the realm of mobility to offer your AI services for example as well, how much more do you want to add on.
And make that well? It is we are very asset light, and we are going to both invest and partner in some of these areas. So for example, we have fleet partners who focus on charging the vehicles, repairing in terms of having depots, etc. It will be a combination for us of both investment, direct investment and partnerships as we build this ecosystem. Again, there's going to be a trillion dollar plus ecosystem, and I think we can play a key part in the development of that ecosystem. And then
you're absolutely right. We're very, very excited about the power of AI in multiple dimensions and we do have a really promising business that we're building Uber ai solutions where actually we're using our drivers and other experts for example, to rate models. We can operate this globally. We've got over eight and a half million people earning on our platform, and we're just extending that platform not just to drive folks around, not just to deliver, but also train AI models,
translate language, et cetera. We think it's a really really exciting new business that we're building with our partners as well.
And let's just go to that global footprint for a moment. Because you recently increased your partnership with Reride, which is over in China for example. It's about expanding in Europe and other countries from an av perspective, But how easy or hard is it to make deals with the Chinese right now in this geopolitical environment.
Well, we Ride has been a terrific partner. I wouldn't generalize in terms of the Chinese. You know, we have terrific relationships with Reride, with Pony, We've had really really promising talks with bay Do as well. The fact is that these Chinese companies are run by entrepreneurs who want to grow, who want to innovate, and they're innovating incredible speed, and we want to be part of that innovation and we want to grow in partnership in the right markets.
I do think that we will be working with Chinese av players in Europe, in the Middle East, in the rest of the world, and then obviously here in the US we want to be partnering up with local players like Weima.
And lastly, it's a sensitive one, Dara, but we talked about how well, perhaps there are fewer travelers coming from Canada into the United States as such a pin up US brand. Are you finding any reticence geographically from international users in this time where perhaps well America's brand is getting hit a little bit.
It feels it's something that we've asked ourselves, but we don't see any signal there whatsoever. And I think what's great about Uber is that we're the ultimate local company. Yes, we're a global brand, but the fact is that when you get into that car, you're getting into a car with a local entrepreneur. The majority of the fair goes to to drivers as well, so we are kind of
the flow of funds is very very local. We work with the local merchants in your city, so it's not only local in terms of countries, but it's actually local in terms of the cities in which we operate. We are, you know, the ultimate global local company if you want to call it that, and I think it shows in the results, and you know, we're big believers in the
US brand. We're obviously going through a periative change. The long term, we absolutely believe that the relationship between the US and the rest of the world will continue to be strong and we want to be a part of that