Association With Donald Trump Cost Uber $200 Million In 45 Days
Uber's CEO perceived association with Donald Trump (sitting on his tech advisory panel) has caused a viral #DelteUber campaign, resulting in over 200,000 Uber accounts deleted in 45 days. Videos of the deletion went viral through social media. This is what it cost Uber to have the CEO sit on Trump's panel...
| Uber fares | Average fare | $ 12.00 | ||
| Commisson rate | Fare mix | Weighted avg | ||
| Uber X | 25% | $ 3.00 | 80% | $ 2.40 |
| Uber Pool | 100% | $ 12.00 | 20% | $ 2.40 |
| Booking fee | $ 1.75 | |||
| Uber Revenue per ride | $ 6.55 | |||
| Average rides per year | 156 | |||
| Deleted apps | 200,000 | |||
| Uber Revenue lost due to Trump affiliation | $ 204,360,000 |
The spreadsheet used to calculate this is available as a Google Sheets file here, and I welcome any Uber drivers to modify and add to in in an open source effort to get an accurate representation of Uber's costs and payouts to drivers and passengers.
A $200,000,000 (run rate) loss is quite material for a startup that's not even profitable. There is a real and tangible risk in businesses associating with the Trump administration, at least for Uber. Following the #deleteUber campaign, their closest competitor, Lyft, jumped to #7th position on App Store. This is 7 spots AHEAD of Uber. Material damage has been inflicted. While I'm sure this isn't a permanent situation, it is sure to be lasting and sends a clear message to other companies about the risks of a Trump Administration association.
There are other boycott movements abound, the most prominent of which (GrabYourWallet.org) is rumored to have pressured retail stores to drop the Trump brands. We have not verified the validity of these claims. The movement does seem to truly have legs, and economic leverage behind it, as excerpted from the site:
** During the period of 2/6 through 2/10/17 a high volume of retailers began removing all or most Trump brand items from their websites including Saks OFF FIFTH, Burlington Coat Factory, Sears, Kmart, Jet, HSN, Gilt, ShopStyle, and Belk. HSN and ShopStyle confirmed in statements this was a deliberate choice,. HSN did point out that it is still selling at least one Trump brand product (commemorative currency), so it's remaining on the list for now, as is ShopStyle because it still offers 5 styles of Donald Trump Suits. Jet has been removed from the boycott list. So has Gilt. Belk has stated publicly it will continue to sell Ivanka in brick and mortar locations, so this company will removed from the #GrabYourWallet list until that is no longer the case. Burlington Coat Factory has removed all Trump brand goods from its site but has made no public statement about brick and mortar locations, so it too remains on the list. During this same week, Kmart & Sears removed all the Trump brand items from their sites that they directly stock and ship and publicly stated that they do not sell Trump items in brick and mortar locations. On 2/10, #GrabYourWallet participants voted to keep retailers on the list that provide official Trump brand products via 3rd party retailers.
An not so anecdotal look reveals that for companies with thin margins and/or material consumer exposure, there's a significant economic risk in association with Donald Trump as POTUS.
Disclosure: None.
#Trump isn't the only one being affected by the boycott movement. Numerous companies such as Burlington, Nordstrom, Sears, Kmart and others have stopped selling #Ivanka's retail products in their stores.
It's really fascinating how Americans are increasingly voting with their wallets to enforce their particular beliefs. Whether you agree with it or not, it certainly can have a huge impact on a company's bottom line.
Very true, but I question the correlation between 200k #Uber accounts being deleted and $200 million being lost. I think it's safe to assume that those who were most likely to delete their Uber apps were those who used it the list. And they might add them right back the next time they need a ride!
Excellent point. I actually recently deleted Uber from all my apps but that's only because I recently bought a car. I wonder if multiple apps being deleted by the same user were counted more than once.