Slow Research Academy › Uber › Unit 4 “Moats and Advantages”, lesson 2
The advantage of spread-out headquarters costs: rivals are growing through acquisitions too
This unit asks: Which advantages are hard to copy, and which can be bought?
Uber's cost advantage comes from spreading headquarters costs over larger Gross Bookings; in 2025 and 2026 all three major platforms used acquisitions to grow that denominator.
In July 2026, Uber announced a tender offer at €41.50 per share for Delivery Hero, a German delivery company.
Before that, DoorDash completed its acquisition of the U.K. delivery company Deliveroo in October 2025, and Lyft bought the European ride-hailing platform FreeNow in July 2025.
Within two years, each of the three major U.S. ride and delivery platforms made an overseas acquisition.
The same shared expenses become a smaller share when spread over more bookings
In 2025, Uber's corporate overhead and platform R&D not allocated to business segments were about 1.96% of group Gross Bookings. Unit 3, Lesson 3 distinguished this from a rival's full administrative and R&D expenses; those ratios cannot be directly subtracted.
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