Uber hits 5 billion trips milestone

It’s the week of milestones and today it’s Uber’s turn: the company has reached five billion trips.

Uber hit one billion trips in late 2015 — five years after launching — and in less than two years it has quintupled its intake.

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On 20 May, 156 riders simultaneously pushed Uber over the milestone, and the company is rewarding each of the drivers with US$500.

To put the number into perspective: if one trip was called every second, it would have take 158 years to reach that milestone. The world’s population only reached five billion in 1987.

If Owl City got a thousand hugs from five billion lightning bugs, he’d be receive five trillion hugs.

He’d certainly die.

The good news of the milestone comes at a tumultuous time for the company: ex-CEO Travis Kalanick resigned after having faced months of controversy after controversy. He has yet to be replaced.

Some have taken to Twitter to congratulate the founder.

Another user commented on the fact that Uber has been working at a loss — in the first quarter of 2017 it was sitting at a loss of US$708-million.

I guess you could say the good news came in the Kalanick of time.

Featured image: Susanne Nilsson via Flickr (CC 2.0 BY-SA, resized)

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