Citi reiterates "Buy" rating on Uber but lowers target price to $110

Citi published a research report indicating that Uber (UBER.US) has accelerated its year-on-year growth in Monthly Active Platform Consumers (MAPC) to 18%, with Uber One membership reaching 46 million, a year-on-year increase of 55%, and strong global demand overall. The bank is more confident that Uber's total bookings for delivery and rides can maintain a high level after the fourth quarter.

Autonomous driving remains a major point of debate. The bank is encouraged by Uber's plan to launch autonomous driving services in 15 cities by the end of the year, which highlights its hybrid network advantages as each city gradually progresses. Prior to this, the bank believes Uber is achieving sustainable growth by establishing user lifetime value in MAPC and expanding into lower-density markets, which currently account for about 20% of global ride orders and are growing approximately 1.5 times faster than high-density markets. It is expected that the number of rides and total bookings in the U.S. will continue to accelerate through 2026. Given the strong fundamentals and increasingly clear autonomous driving roadmap, Citi reiterated its "Buy" rating on Uber stock but slightly lowered the target price from $120 to $110.

The report mentioned that Uber's guidance for total bookings in the first quarter of 2026 is $52 billion to $53.5 billion (a year-on-year growth of 17% to 21% excluding currency effects), with the median being about 3% higher than market consensus. However, its guidance for non-GAAP earnings per share is $0.65 to $0.72, implying an adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2.37 billion to $2.47 billion, which is about 1% lower than market consensus