Uber officially launches Uber Freight, its app for pairing truck drivers with companies that need cargo shipped across the US
Available on iOS and Android — After getting a peek from Travis Kalanick earlier this month, Uber today officially launched Uber Freight …
Context & Ripple Effects
Uber Freight moves from a quietly launched Texas marketplace to a national product with driver signups open on iOS and Android, teased by Travis Kalanick earlier this month before today's official debut.
The timing is pointed: Business Insider had already reported an Uber-like shipping app in the works at Amazon, slated for summer 2017 — so Uber is racing to lock drivers into its marketplace before the biggest US shipper builds its own.
First-order effects
- Truck drivers can now sign up directly for Uber Freight, giving owner-operators a new on-demand channel to find loads instead of relying on traditional freight brokers.
- Shippers across the US gain a second app-based option for matching cargo with carriers, immediately after Kalanick previewed the service.
Second-order effects
- With Amazon reportedly building its own driver-matching app for summer 2017, the two companies are set to compete for the same pool of independent truckers, likely pressuring both on take rates and load availability.
- Traditional freight brokers face a consumer-app-style entrant whose pricing and speed were built for ride-hailing economics, forcing them to justify their margins on every load.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Uber expanding Freight state by state, as it did from Texas into six more markets by August 2017, then overseas to the Netherlands by 2019 — trucking brokerage shifts toward platform marketplaces where software owns the customer relationship and carriers become interchangeable supply.
The trend: Freight brokerage is following ride-hailing's playbook: app-based platforms disintermediating brokers and competing for driver supply, with Amazon and Uber now racing to own the match between cargo and trucks.