Uber may deliver marijuana in the future. Update on Credit Karma and Square

Uber’s business reportedly hit a stride in March. CEO hinted at the prospect of delivering marijuana

In a filing today, Uber revealed that it had an astonishing month in March 2021, when its Gross Bookings hit the highest level in the company’s history. Uber said that its annualized bookings for Mobility and Delivery hit $30 and $52 billion, respectively, last month. I have mixed feelings about this. At the first glance, the filing seems like a trove of good news for Uber as the figures imply that its two main business segments are firing on all cylinders. Uber’s total bookings in 2018 and 2019 were $50 and $65 billion, respectively. If the annualized numbers above are realized in 10 months’ time, that will be an impressive achievement for a company of this size, given that our societies spent more than one year in a historic pandemic.

But IF is the important word here. To be honest, I don’t really know how the annualization is calculated. Did they multiply the bookings in March by 12? Or did they multiply the bookings in the best week in March by 52? I may be ignorant not to understand the nuances in these languages, but if you invest your hard-earned cash into a company, it’s healthy to be a bit paranoid.

Another news that came from Uber is that its CEO hinted at the prospect of delivering marijuana.

“When federal laws come into play, we’re absolutely going to take a look at it,” 

Source: The Verge

Two months ago, I wrote about Uber’s acquisition of Drizly, the market leader in liquor delivery in the US. Chief among the benefits of acquiring Drizly for Uber are the proprietary technology that can verify IDs and the team that knows how to navigate the complex legal systems at the state and county levels. These capabilities will be tremendously helpful to Uber if they decide to delivery marijuana. Even in the states that allow the cannabis delivery, consumers still have to show that they are old enough; which is the perfect use case scenario for what Uber gets from Drizly. Right now, marijuana for recreational purposes is only legalized in a handful of states and is still illegal at the federal level. Some Democrats are pushing to change that and I think that it’s just a matter of time before the change takes place. Even if marijuana for fun is legal on the federal level, there will still be a lot of work to be done on the local level as each state will have a different mandate. In that case, having a team that knows how to deal with regulations from county to county on liquor delivery like Drizly will come in handy. The recreational legal cannabis market in the US is estimated to reach $27 billion by 2024. Estimates like this are usually optimistic, but even if half of that estimate checks out, it will increase Uber’s Total Addressable Market significantly.

Update on Credit Karma and Square

Last month, I wrote about Square’s acquisition of Credit Karma’s tax unit and potential benefits that the former can take from the latter

In essence, it benefits Square when customers have balance in their Cash App. The more balance there is, the more useful Cash App is to customers and the more revenue & profit Square can potentially earn. I imagine that once Credit Karma’s tax tool is integrated into Cash App, there will be a function that directs tax returns to customers’ Cash App. When the tax returns are deposited into Cash App, customers can either spend them; which either increases the ecosystem’s value (P2P), or deposit the fund back to their bank accounts. But if customers already direct the tax returns to Cash App in the first place, it’s unlikely the money will be redirected again back to a checking account. As Cash App users become more engaged and active, Square will look more attractive to prospect sellers whose business yield Square a much much higher gross margin than the company’s famous Cash App. 

Today, a user on Twitter noticed the new integration between Credit Karma and Square that would enable users to direct tax refunds straight to their Cash App account. Even though this is a logical move, how it will actually benefit Cash App remains to be seen as there hasn’t been any reporting on the overlap between Cash App and Credit Karma’s tax unit in terms of active users. Nonetheless, I look forward to seeing what Square brings to the market that stems from this acquisition.