Waymo does not need Uber. That is the uncomfortable reality hanging over Wednesday’s Q3 report from the world’s largest ride-hailing platform. Waymo quietly wound down its Phoenix robotaxi and food delivery arrangements with Uber in May 2026. The partner Uber most wanted to showcase is, methodically, turning into a direct competitor.
Against that backdrop, the financial bar for Wednesday is not trivially easy. Management guided Q3 gross bookings to $58.25 billion to $60.25 billion, representing constant-currency growth of 18% to 22% year over year. The analyst consensus EPS estimate sits at $1.02, well above the company’s own guidance range of $0.84 to $0.88. The gap between what the street expects and what management told them to expect is unusual and suggests the market is betting on operational beats beyond the guide.
Trips grew 18% to 3.9 billion in Q2, and the company said the moderation in trip growth was “entirely attributable to Brazil,” its highest-volume market globally. Brazil saw a temporary shortage of drivers in the cheaper Moto segment, partly due to competition from delivery platforms for those same drivers. Investors will scrutinize whether Q3 data shows that Brazil drag easing or deepening.
The Bet Beneath the Bookings
The more consequential question Wednesday is whether Uber’s autonomous vehicle strategy holds together. Uber expects to pour more than $10 billion into autonomous vehicle companies, vehicles, and related infrastructure over the next few years, breaking from its asset-light gig economy model to avoid disruption from robotaxis.
The theory is seductive: for Uber, the only way to retain its ride-hailing leadership in a fully autonomous future is to ensure that virtually every robotaxi player depends on its platform for distribution. The practice is messier. Waymo has built direct customer relationships in every city it has expanded into on its own terms, while Uber’s entire robotaxi strategy assumes that operators will keep needing its ride-hailing network to reach riders. Waymo’s exit from Phoenix is a live test of that assumption, and the result so far is not flattering.
Uber has partnered with more than 30 autonomous vehicle companies as of August 2026, spanning robotaxi technology providers, automakers, fleet operators, delivery robot companies, and autonomous trucking firms. The company plans to scale NVIDIA software-driven robotaxis across 28 cities globally by 2028. Spreading bets across three dozen partners is rational hedging, but it also means Uber’s AV future depends on execution by companies it does not control.
Bull Case, Bear Case
The bull case rests on the core business compounding faster than the AV risks can mount. Q3 guidance implies another high-teens to low-20s growth quarter for gross bookings. Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of gross bookings has been expanding, from 4.1% in Q3 2024 to 4.5% in Q3 2025. If margins keep widening and Brazil stabilizes, the valuation looks reasonable. At a forward earnings multiple of about 15, Uber trades well below many large internet/software peers.
The bear case is simpler. Uber shares have fallen roughly 28% from a record high reached in October 2025. Uber is spending billions on a technology that has been perpetually two years away for the better part of a decade. And its most credible AV partner is leaving.
What to Watch Wednesday
Three numbers matter most. First, gross bookings: does the company land above the $59.25 billion midpoint of its own range, or does Brazil keep biting? Second, Q4 guidance, which will reveal whether management sees the Brazil drag as resolved. Third, anything management says about AV trip volume.
Uber is a profitable, fast-growing business with genuine platform advantages and 208 million monthly active consumers as of Q2. It is also a company whose most important strategic partner is walking out the door, whose core trip growth is being squeezed in its largest single market, and whose $10 billion AV commitment has shifted it from the asset-light model that made it valuable in the first place. Wednesday will not resolve that tension. But it will show which direction the pressure is moving.
