New Delhi, May 19, 2025 (ANI): Uber users can now conveniently purchase Metro tickets directly via the Uber app, powered by ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce).
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00:00If you're a more discerning user, as you heard the MC talk about, you could actually be experiencing an Uber black or a very, very differentiated Uber pet service.
00:09In fact, India is one of the few countries where almost every mobility product line that Uber offers is already live.
00:20Not only as a market, we see India as a strategic innovation hub.
00:25What we build in India often has relevance in multiple geographies globally.
00:31Examples for the last few years have been introducing things like cash way back in 2015, which we then took global, to services like Intercity, services like Uber Shuttle, and more.
00:44And these continue to be innovations which we iterate, test, build in the market, and which then find a globally relevant and a very, very warmly receiving audience.
00:55Another theme which has been incredibly special for us over the last more than a decade has been the theme around public-private partnerships.
01:04If you look at our history in the market, we have always been bold and courageous to make sure that we partner with different cities.
01:13At the end of the day, it's a business which is bits and atoms.
01:17We operate in the physical world.
01:19We partner with smart cities.
01:21We partner with local state government agendas to see how we can combine the technology and the experiences that we have to make our cities better.
01:29Today, the announcements which we will make are a continuation of that belief.
01:37We are very, very honored to have with us partners from DMRC, Dr. Vikas Kumar, from ONDC, Sri Sanjeev, Vibhor, and many, many other partners across the board.
01:50What we unveiled today is a step towards a next level of innovation where we are going to embrace the public-private partnership and truly hope to make that a gold standard for how we can solve for core urban mobility challenges together.
02:08And this is just a start.
02:12It's not just about mobility.
02:14It's truly about partnering and co-creating with India's famed and almost enviable digital public infrastructure.
02:24We believe India's future on commerce, on mobility, is going to be 100% digital.
02:30And that would help us solve problems of population scale which haven't been done anywhere else.
02:38We'll be able to combine technology solutions, developments in AI, and the local entrepreneurial spirit and public digital infrastructure of the kind which is already live to create solutions which we think will truly help us leapfrog some fundamental population scale challenges.
02:57We are privileged to have with us today Uber's chief technology officer through the week spending time across multiple cities starting from here.
03:07And I'm going to hand over the stage to him shortly after for you to hear from him how he's thinking, how the global leadership at Uber is thinking of making this digital future a reality.
03:18Now, as the video says, we are really excited to launch Delhi Metro and Uber on ONDC, right?
03:27And this is first of our integrations with ONDC, many more to come.
03:32But we are also going to launch three more metros across the country before the end of the year.
03:39And this is going to form the foundations for Uber to be able to replicate this tech, to be able to launch much more things on ONDC.
03:47And as the video says, right, what you can do as an Uber user, you're able to hop onto the Uber app and book your metro ticket with a QR-based system experience.
04:02And then you will be able to pay with UPI.
04:05It's an exclusive UPI payment.
04:07And the most important thing, which I'm very excited about, as you know, Uber is about different modes of transportation.
04:15You're able to avail motor, auto, car, shuttle.
04:19And now with the Delhi Metro, it kind of, like, fulfills the whole ecosystem.
04:25And this true multimodal transportation is now possible that we are able to offer to our consumers.
04:30And, see, one of the visions for Uber is able to make affordable mobility options where and meet the riders with the price points that they're able to afford.
04:44And here are some of the products that we have, right, which is starting from moto, you are able to zip through the traffic and get to the place you want faster,
04:54or use the auto to go to your local marketplaces, or you have a car for a comfortable ride, or you take an Uber shuttle to a bus to commute to your offices and so forth.
05:05And now we are able to fulfill the metro in Delhi.
05:08And this is truly a tech-enabled multimodal transportation mobility options.
05:13And that is going to happen in the capital city, right?
05:15It's a true example of it.
05:17And this is going to scale across India as such.
05:19And quickly for us, as a vision that we talk about at Uber is, you should be able to go anywhere and get anything.
05:30And going anywhere is with the multiple, all the modes of transportation I talked about, going from point A to point B seamlessly with the mode of transportation that you want.
05:38And get anything is get anything and everywhere, right?
05:41And to that effect, what I'm going to talk about is, is what are we doing in get anything in India?
05:48We have a product called Uber Courier, right?
05:51Which is an intra-city product.
05:53It's a consumer product.
05:54A consumer is able to send or receive parcels in a city in an on-demand basis, right?
06:02And this has been growing really fast.
06:04We are now in like 25 cities and growing 50% year over year.
06:07About 5 million consumers have already used this product.
06:10And recently, we also launched something called as Uber Courier XL for heavy shipments and so forth.
06:18So, Delivery Network in India and Delivery Logistics is actually growing rapidly, right?
06:24And what more than ONDC who can help blitz scale this faster?
06:30To that effect, we are also announcing that we are going to integrate into ONDC Network to launch B2B Logistics.
06:38Now, B2B Logistics is about a business.
06:44B2B Logistics is about a business who are able to request on-demand logistics on Uber Network.
06:50And we are able to, and without having their fleet on their own, right?
06:53Imagine like everybody having their fleet.
06:55That's not possible for small merchants.
06:57Now, we are also able to give earning options to 1.4 million earners on our platforms.
07:02And we truly intend to ONDC to make this democratized and scale a scale.
07:08And it's going to come very soon.
07:11And with that, I'm going to wrap.
07:13But my closing thoughts are these kind of, like, integrations are, like, amazing synergies that's possible between public and private,
07:22which was never possible before.
07:23And we are launching Delhi Metro, and we're going to launch three more metros by end of the year,
07:29and B2B Logistics coming across.
07:31And truly, it's possible only because of digital public infrastructure like ONDC.
07:38And what we want to do is we want to contribute and be part of it and do much more integrations of this fashion.
07:44And we're just getting started.
07:46Before I start, I just want to say that I come here, come to India often.
07:51And every time I come here, I learn something, and I take back something, and I build it.
07:57And usually it works.
07:58First in India, and then we scale it globally.
08:01And that's only possible if you come in and actually experience the products and people here.
08:06And what gives me advantage is that I grew up in India.
08:09So I deeply understand India and the India ecosystem.
08:11And I'm really proud to make people in India move with our tech in a meaningful way.
08:18Now, before I proceed, I just wanted to give you a glance of who is Uber from a global sense.
08:25We have three big businesses.
08:27One is Uber Mobility that you guys are all aware of.
08:30The second is Uber Eats that is the delivery platform.
08:33And the third is Uber Freight.
08:34This is the freight platform.
08:35And we are operating in about 70 countries with about 15,000 cities.
08:42And we have about 8.5 million earners on our platform.
08:47Earners are the drivers and couriers.
08:49These are the folks who are coming to our platform to earn money.
08:51This is across the world.
08:53And we have about 170 million active consumers on our platform.
08:56We do 34 million trips a day and 8 trillion transactions.
09:03Let's just give you a scale of our operations across the globe, including India.
09:06And when it comes to India, India is an incredible market where it's so diverse in nature.
09:14It's a dynamic market.
09:15And we operate in about 125 cities.
09:19And we have about 1.4 million earners, deserve drivers, on our platform.
09:25And just last year, we did about a billion trips just in India.
09:31It's just incredible scale that India offers.
09:34And for me personally, as a tech person, these are great business tasks.
09:38But as a tech, these are all great challenges that poses to me as to how I'm going to operate the business
09:43and how I'm going to scale it, right, in a reliable manner, right?
09:46And to do that, we need a lot of innovation to happen.
09:51And I'm proud to say that most of the innovation is happening right here in India.
09:57And India Tech Hub, which we have in Bangalore and Hyderabad,
10:03is our second largest tech center outside of the U.S.
10:06And we've had this tech hub since 2014 or so.
10:10So it's been a long time since we've been building here, right?
10:13And we've built core infrastructure, core platforms, core products that actually works here.
10:19And then we take them and also build them, scale them globally.
10:22So we're incredibly proud.
10:24And the only reason why this is possible is because of the incredible talent in India, right?
10:29And we're deeply invested in India.
10:31And the emerging AI stuff that's happening, the revolution that's happening,
10:36we're able to leverage that and build it in India as well.
10:38Now, there's another thing that's happening in India, which I'm really excited about,
10:47which is our digital public infrastructure, right?
10:51It's incredible how we have invested, the country has invested in this infrastructure.
10:56And it's not something new, right?
10:57This hasn't been happening for years.
10:59With other card serving about 1.4 billion people, it's incredible scale.
11:03And second is the UPI payment that revolutionized the payment infrastructure and digitized it.
11:10And now ONDC with the commerce.
11:12It's an incredible work that's been happening here.
11:14And last year, our CEO, Dara Khosrowshadi, came here and he understood how this whole digital infrastructure is actually scaling.
11:24He was very impressed.
11:25And he came back and he really wanted us to engage really deeply in here in a meaningful manner.
11:30And he explained how he was able to get his own CHI by paying with UPI.
11:36And he's also spent time with Mr. Nandan, who is a big evangelist of this program, right?
11:42And through that, we are also signed an agreement that we will be leveraging the ONDC to launch some products.
11:51And today, we are here to match our words with actions.
11:55You all understand a bit of Hindi also.
12:01Prabhjit Ji has said that we are very excited.
12:07So are we.
12:10In fact, every Indian should be excited about this partnership.
12:14It is the beginning of something which I think will be in the annals of history and probably we will be doing something really great.
12:27In fact, when I met Mr. Naga, my heart swelled with pride that a company like Uber, which is a multinational, international company and very tech-driven,
12:41Indian, and who is at the helm of Uber in terms of technology, it is an Indian.
12:48That is a matter of great sense of pride.
12:58And in fact, two days back, we had a meeting in Sidney.
13:03And there I met Mr. Kunal Bahal.
13:07Some of you would be knowing him as a – he is one of the top founders of India.
13:15Snap deal you must have heard.
13:18Unicommerce also you must have heard.
13:22In fact, they had a very good IPO last year.
13:26And he is also a participant of ONDC network.
13:33So I asked him, whenever I meet someone who is involved in ONDC, and in fact now we are looking forward to take the legacy of Mr. Kosi,
13:46who has done great service to ONDC, and now Mr. Dibhor is there, and I am very sure that we will take up ONDC to a place which all Indians want it to be.
14:02And when I asked Mr. Bahal, what needs to be done with ONDC?
14:13Then he said,
14:15that you have to be done with bits and atoms and atoms.
14:21Don't forget to be done with bits and atoms and atoms.
14:26So I said,
14:27that I have to be done with bits and atoms and bits and atoms.
14:32But tell me, what is the meaning of this?
14:36So when he explained,
14:38what you are doing with bits,
14:43and what you are doing with bits,
14:45and what I have told you about,
14:47that I have told you that,
14:48that we have talked about Uber and OLA and other companies,
14:52that we have talked about ONDC,
14:54and that we have talked about ONDC,
14:56that we have talked about ONDC.
15:01Now our focus is,
15:03part of ONDC network. Now our focus is to see where are the complementarities and I believe
15:13this is a great example of complementarity between Uber and our network. In fact, I was
15:23going to request Mr. Naga for two things. I was going to request him
15:33that he should come forward for logistics which he has already said. And I believe each one
15:45of us takes Uber sometime or other when going back from office late in night. And then you
15:55must be thinking, so that when we reach our home, food is there and I don't have to slog in the kitchen
16:13to prepare the food. So my next request is that you should look very seriously in the food business,
16:23but at the same time I will request ONDC also, Mr. Vibhor also, that they will come only when two
16:32things are met. The first is that their brand equity is not compromised. Uber is such a big company that
16:40for some money they will not compromise their brand equity. So we should be very, very careful and
16:50conscious how we will be working so as to make them proud of the ONDC network. And second but foremost,
17:05for what every business thrives is to have profits. So we need to understand the model should be such which
17:15should be profitable to Uber. And we are already in talks with almost hundreds of hoteliers, restaurants,
17:31associations, associations. And probably we will be very soon coming up with something on which Uber and other
17:41companies can work and they should. And lastly, I will also say that apart from ONDC, I also look after start-ups. And in start-ups,
17:54you will be, Mr. Naga, very happy to know that India is among the third largest start-ups and we at start-up India are trying to make it
18:07not only the biggest but the best start-up ecosystem and in which we need help of Uber because when we analyze the start-up ecosystem of US,
18:17we realize that it is the corporate houses like big companies which are promoting the innovation. So we will request the DPI IT is also a very good afternoon to all of you.
18:32In fact, it is a matter of pride and both great happiness that I am here addressing you at this moment where Uber along with ONDC platform is able to sell our Metro QR tickets.
18:51In fact, this is in line with the service we want to provide to our customers. In fact, our vision is to make commuting experience in Delhi Metro a customer's delight.
19:06And this is one step towards that. So it is a great occasion for me. And I thank ONDC and Uber for collaborating with us in this step forward.
19:23In Delhi Metro, Delhi Metro, as you all know, from the past two decades has come up as the lifeline of Delhi. It is because I would say of the team at Delhi Metro and also the commuters
19:44both know how to use Metro Metro and Metro has proven by providing punctual, reliable, safe and quality services to our and all-inclusive services to our valued customers.
19:59We would require, I would, at this point, I have already asked Prabhjit and Praveenji to, in fact, move a step forward in this direction that providing seamless ticketing experience,
20:22a passenger should be able to book the last mile as well as the Delhi Metro ticket through a single click and through a single transaction,
20:34which they would definitely come up shortly. It would be a great help in this direction for our passengers.
20:42And he would, he would be using the last mile. In fact, it would be very easier for him to move from his door or rather door to door, I would say.
20:59And here, again, he would also get the options of what sort of ride he wants, whether it is a two-wheeler or a three-wheeler or a taxi or an AC or a bus.
21:16And along with that, he, so he has the options to choose, which is what we want, because we have passengers from a wide domain of society.
21:29So everybody's, and our endeavor is to meet everyone's requirement. And this would be a great step forward in that direction.
21:39I, again, compliment Uber, ONDC, and also my team DMRC for this achievement and many more to come in future.
21:57DMRC has always embraced new technology for the convenience of people, our customers.
22:08And we are all open for getting, rather I am happy to share with you that in 2024, that is last year, in Transport Ticketing Global Event at UK,
22:26we won the Digital Champions Award, DMRC.
22:31So I compliment my team DMRC for that. And with this, I just want to say that we should, together, collaborate with people and work for solutions which are best for our customers.
22:51And in this direction, once again, thank you to all of you and Jai Hind.
22:56This is just the beginning of Uber's journey onto the ONDC platform.
23:01You will see a lot more of this going forward this year and subsequent years.
23:05And as part of this initiative, we actually got a chance to work with the ONDC team, the Delhi Metro team.
23:12It was just a fun and an awesome experience.
23:15Each of their team operated like a startup where we were able to reach to their team at any point in time,
23:20and we were able to get the support that Uber team wanted to really make this into a reality.
23:25So thank you, sir. And thank you. We want to first be thankful for all your team members who really made this to a reality,
23:31both your engineering team and an operations team.
23:33I want to take an opportunity to thank the Uber engineering team and the operations team to really make this happen.
23:38And I really want to thank all the government officials, the ONDC officials, and the media team here, the Delhi Metro team,
23:46and finally Uber team here for your graceful presence for this event.
23:52And thank you. And please don't forget to use your Uber app whenever you are going to take your Delhi Metro going forward. Thank you.