WAYMO STILL NICHE/BURNING CASH
Waymo is growing, but it’s still burning cash. CNBC reported:
Waymo, generated $372 million in revenue, up 8% from a year earlier, and accounting for just 0.3% of total sales.
That revenue comes at a steep price. Operating loss in the Other Bets segment widened to $2.05 billion during the quarter from $1.43 billion a year ago. The unit also houses drug design research business Isomorphic, which is using Google’s Gemini 4 Argon AI models.
“Waymo now operates in 15 major U.S. cities and just recently opened up service to the public in San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa with planned expansions into Canada, Germany, Singapore and Spain,” Pichai said on the call.
Waymo’s steepest competition on the global stage comes from Baidu’s Apollo Go, which is based in China.
Last week Waymo started offering driverless rides to and from the Las Vegas airport, after previously announcing airport service in five other cities, including San Francisco and Phoenix.
DOORDASH TO BUY INSTACART
DoorDash wants to buy Instacart. Bloomberg reported:
DoorDash Inc. agreed to buy rival Instacart in a deal that values the company at about $17 billion, the latest sign of consolidation in an increasingly competitive delivery market.
DoorDash will pay $65 a share in cash and stock, it said Thursday in a statement. That represents a 26% premium to Instacart’s closing stock price on Oct. 22, the last trading day before media reports about a possible sale. Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that DoorDash and Instacart were in advanced deal talks.
FTC WANTS ANSWERS FROM UBER
FTC wants answers about Uber’s pricing. The Guardian reported:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is demanding some of the US’s biggest airlines, ride-share companies and retailers divulge how they are using algorithms and loyalty programs to target customers and drivers with different prices and wages.
Nine companies — Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart — were named in the inquiry, which comes after investigations and lawsuits alleging consumers are charged different prices based on their buying histories and drivers paid different fares based on their personal histories.
Companies must “turn over information that will allow the agency to assess whether the pricing for a ticket, ride share, food delivery or other product or service varies from one person to the next based on factors such as participation in loyalty programs or analysis of personal data by super-intelligence algorithms”, the FTC said.
Whether the inquiry will result in substantial changes in consumer laws or company practices is unclear.
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