Uber Inks Deal on Drone Delivery: Is the Growth Thesis Strengthening?

Uber Technologies UBER entered into a partnership with drone operator Flytrex. The partnership aims to launch drone delivery on the Uber Eats platform. The service is expected to begin with Uber Eats pilot markets in the United States by the end of 2025. Uber Eats is the online food ordering and delivery platform of Uber.

The partnership results in the combination of Flytrex’s proven autonomous drone delivery system and Uber’s global platform and logistics expertise for creating a fully integrated end-to-end experience for speed, safety and scale. For expediting the development and deployment of drone delivery technology, Uber is making its first investment in drone technology with Flytrex. With autonomous drones being the future of food delivery, Uber’s move to ink a deal with Flytrex is a prudent one.

Flytrex’s expertise in the autonomous drone food delivery space can be gauged from the fact that it has completed more than 200,000 deliveries across the United States and operates with FAA-certified safety standards, demonstrating that its drones can share the skies with manned aircraft.

The association with Flytrex marks Uber’s return into the field of drone deliveries after 2019, when Uber Eats intended to test flying food to customers by drone in San Diego and made a few test deliveries in partnership with McDonald's MCD. Uber Eats collaborated on the experiment with Uber Elevate, the company’s aviation division, at that time. However, the testing in partnership with McDonald’s failed to launch commercially.  

Ultimately, Uber sold its aviation division to Joby Aviation JOBY in 2020. This acquisition by Joby Aviation resulted in the merger of its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology with Uber’s experience in on-demand mobility services. Joby Aviation is currently quite close to commercializing air taxi services.

UBER’s Share Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of UBER have gained in double digits so far this year despite the tariff-related uncertainty. Courtesy of the upbeat performance, UBER’s shares have handily outperformed its industry on a year-to-date basis.

From a valuation standpoint, UBER trades at a forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio of 3.39X. UBER is inexpensive compared with its industry.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-year 2025 and 2026 has remained stable over the past seven days.

UBER's Zacks Rank

UBER currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.   




 

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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