Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber (UBER)) just delivered a first-quarter 2026 earnings report that had analysts nodding in approval. The company beat expectations across the board, and BNP Paribas analyst Nick Jones is sticking with his Outperform rating and $108 price target, convinced that Uber's dominance isn't going anywhere for years.

Uber Beats Expectations Across Key Metrics

Jones noted Wednesday that Uber's first-quarter results were strong, with Gross Bookings hitting $53.7 billion—about 1.5% above the consensus estimate of $52.9 billion. Revenue came in at $13.2 billion, roughly in line with Wall Street's expectations, while adjusted EBITDA reached $2.5 billion, topping consensus by about 2%. On the profitability front, adjusted EPS of $0.72 beat estimates of $0.70.

Looking ahead, Uber guided for second-quarter Gross Bookings of $56.25 billion to $57.75 billion, above Street expectations at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion was roughly 4% above consensus, and adjusted EPS guidance of $0.78 to $0.82 bracketed analyst expectations. Jones modestly raised his revenue and adjusted EBITDA forecasts following the results and guidance update, keeping his $108 price target based on a 16x EV/2027E adjusted EBITDA multiple.

Mobility, Delivery, and Platform Growth Remain Strong

Jones highlighted accelerating momentum across Uber's Mobility and Delivery businesses, despite lingering macro and autonomous vehicle concerns. Mobility gross bookings rose about 25% year over year to $26.4 billion, beating consensus, while Delivery gross bookings climbed about 28% to $26 billion.

He pointed to Uber's "barbell" strategy, where lower-cost ride options boost user frequency while premium offerings generate significantly higher profit dollars. Uber One membership grew more than 50% year over year to 50 million users, and it now drives half of gross bookings across Mobility and Delivery. Cross-platform engagement is also improving, with cross-platform users growing 1.5x faster than single-segment consumers. Nearly $15 billion in delivery gross bookings now originate from the Mobility app.

Uber For Business remains a major growth driver, generating more than $5 billion in annualized gross bookings while growing roughly 45% year over year across more than 300,000 organizations globally.

Autonomous Vehicles and AI Expand Uber's Long-Term Opportunity

"We see Uber as being positioned to remain dominant for the next several years," Jones said in his report. He believes Uber remains well-positioned despite investor concerns that autonomous vehicles could disintermediate the platform.

Uber currently offers autonomous vehicle rides in eight cities and plans to expand to as many as 15 cities globally by year-end. The company has signed or expanded partnerships with a long list of players: Zoox, WeRide (WRD), Wayve, Waabi, Rivian (RIVN), Pony AI (PONY), NVIDIA (NVDA), Motional, Baidu (BIDU), Lucid (LCID), Nissan (NSANY), Verne, Hertz (HTZ), and SafeDriver. According to Jones, autonomous vehicle trips on Uber's platform increased 10x year over year.

Jones also highlighted Uber's growing use of artificial intelligence across consumer, driver, and internal operations. Uber launched "Cart Assistant" to help users build grocery orders, introduced "Earner Assistant" for drivers and couriers, and rolled out "One Search" to unify ride, food, and retail discovery within a single interface. Internally, Uber now generates more than 10% of its production-ready code autonomously through AI coding agents.

Jones maintained that Uber's dominant position in mobility and delivery, expanding autonomous vehicle ecosystem, strong network effects, and capital-light business model should continue to drive revenue growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation over the next several years.

Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with an average price target of $104.89. Recent analyst moves include:

• DA Davidson: Buy (Raises forecast to $107.00) (May 6)
• UBS: Buy (Lowers forecast to $110.00) (May 1)
• Citizens: Market Outperform (Maintains forecast to $100.00) (April 28)

UBER Price Action: Uber shares were up 0.92% at $79.90 during premarket trading on Thursday.