Being in the rideshare business during a global pandemic was tough.
Fortunately, Uber (UBER) had its meal delivery business to fall back on… which produced revenues and kept their fleet of drivers fairly busy.
Now that we’re moving past COVID, what does the return to “normal” look like for Uber? Rideshare demand is returning – slowly

From a macro perspective, there are significant signs of resurgence in ride-sharing demand:

Consumers are leaning on Uber and Lyft to get them to work, to a night out, and to the airport more than they did a year ago.

And that’s great – but not enough.
As you can see in the chart above, until consumers start really traveling again (to other cities, via airports), the rideshare business is going to suffer compared to pre-pandemic levels.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on air travel demand for pin-action into ride-sharing. Uber Eats is losing to DoorDash

Meal delivery services flourished during the era of lockdowns, shutdowns, and general fears of public places.
But now that folks are hitting the town again, overall demand for doorstep meal delivery is waning.
More importantly, a winner seems to have emerged… and it’s not Uber Eats:

Not only does Uber Eats trail DoorDash in buzz growth, its secondary brand Postmates, which Uber acquired in 2020, is sitting in the basement of obscurities with Grubhub. The fact that DoorDash is increasing overall demand during this macro downturn is pretty amazing.

It tells me that we may have a winner in meal delivery, and Uber Eats may have to settle for continued positioning as Uber’s “diversification play”.