clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Uber: Now One Billion Served

Before New Year's Eve, Uber's busiest day, the company is feeling gift-y.

Uber

By now, Uber is accustomed to billions with a B: The number appears in its frequent funding rounds and sky-high valuation. Now add to that the total rides the app has booked.

On Wednesday, Uber declared that a short trip in a Honda in London marked the company’s one billionth since its inception in 2009. To celebrate, Uber is dipping into its multibillion-dollar kitty to reward the lucky ride pairing. The London passenger will receive a free year of Uber rides; the driver gets a vacation to any city worldwide in which Uber operates, courtesy of Uber (that’s over 360 cities in 68 countries).

It’s serendipitous that the ride happened in London, home to a recent Uber victory in an extended brawl with the local taxi industry (something else to which Uber is accustomed). In October, a British High Court ruled that Uber was not operating outside the law in London.

A year ago, Uber revealed its first ridership numbers — a million rides a day and 140 million for all of 2014 — in a blog post about its safety measures in the wake of the high-profile rape incident in India. In September, CEO Travis Kalanick told Fast Company it’s now two million rides a day.

The fast-growing company is bracing for its busiest day of the year tomorrow, when revelers ring in 2016 across the globe. Yesterday, Uber announced it was opening service in Cartagena, Colombia, a popular New Year’s Eve destination.

Update: Turns out the lucky rider, a man named Marvin, has an asterisk next to his Uber gift. Sorry, Marvin!

https://twitter.com/dmac1/status/682336784412323843

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for Vox Recommends

Get curated picks of the best Vox journalism to read, watch, and listen to every week, from our editors.