So we’re delivering the bottom line. We’re delivering free cash flow. We’ve delivered GAAP operating income, as we’ve talked about over the past three years, while driving a lot of top line growth. And so the business is in terrific shape as you think about how we’re going into 2424 and beyond. And again, we are balancing our capital allocation model. We probably do a little optimized to make sure we deliver on the bottom, but we are able to fund certain growth initiatives. So we have a lot of confidence in terms of where we are. And as you heard from Dara’s commentary on all the growth vectors we have, we’re pretty bullish about where the company has had it.
Doug Anmuth: Thank you both.
Nelson Chai: You bet. Next question.
Operator: Our next question comes from Benjamin Black with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Benjamin Black: Great. Thanks for taking the question. You, obviously, got a nice regulatory win in New York last week, but we still have the DOL on the EU platform directive, Prop. 22 in California. So it’d be great, if you can give us a lay of the land on the registry front? And do you feel comfortable operating in any employment classification outcome? And then just quickly, there are clearly concerns around the crisis in the Middle East. We’ve heard from other travel companies. Could you help size your exposure there? And have you seen any impact to demand since the conflict began? Thank you.
Dara Khosrowshahi: Sure. Absolutely. So in terms of the regulatory framework, the first thing I’d say is we can operate under any regulatory framework. So we think the right framework is the framework that preserves flexibility for drivers and couriers, while providing them protections. And, for example, our settlement with New York AG and the DOL provides for earners to be able to earn flexibly on the platform with minimum earnings and other protections as well, insurance protections that we think is the right framework going forward. It’s the same framework that voters voted for in Prop. 22 in California. And if I look big picture, generally, the world is moving towards this model, which is earned flexibly with benefits such as minimum earnings and other benefits out there that are important on a state-by-state basis or on a country-by-country basis.
And for us, it’s really entering into dialogue with all the constituencies to get to the right solution there. There are some markets where drivers or employees for example, fleets with which we do business. This is in some of our European businesses, European end markets. They are employees of fleets. We contract with these fleets, and these fleets are on our platform as well. And those markets are profitable as well. The price to the end consumer is higher and drivers, frankly, missed the flexibility that they have in markets where independent contractor plus model is the right model going forward. So if I zoom out, the regulatory framework that we see is not about whether or not we’re in a market or not, whether or not we do business there or not.
It’s about whether or not our earners have flexibility to work on our platform, the way that they want to work on our platform, when they want to work on our platform, where they want to work on our platform and what the price is to the end consumer. And generally, I would say that across the world, this — there are absolute exceptions. Most countries, most states are moving in the direction of flexibility, plus benefits and protections. And then in terms of the Middle East. So the Middle East is about — represents about 2% of our overall gross bookings of the business. So it’s a relatively small part of our business. Now certain parts of the Middle East are quite profitable. So it’s a very attractive geography to us. Generally, we are seeing some weakness in a couple of countries in the Middle East, Egypt, for example, is one that I would point out.
But we don’t operate in Israel. We don’t operate in the West Bank, so we’re not affected in any way directly. And any weakness that we see in the Middle East is very, very small compared to the rest of the business. We were a little worried. Will companies cut back on travel? Will people come back general on travel? And actually, with our Uber for Business segment, we’re seeing travel spend up, whereas some of the company that we contracted with were saying either no travel or travel when necessary, now let’s kind of use your judgment and we’re seeing a bit of acceleration in our room for business, which is quite encouraging going forward.
Benjamin Black: Great. Thanks so much.
Dara Khosrowshahi: You’re welcome.
Operator: Our next question comes from Ken Gawrelski with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Ken Gawrelski: And let me reiterate. Thanks, Nelson, for the partnership over the years. Two questions, if I may. First, you talked about just broadening out a little bit on the macro side. I know you just talked about the Middle East specific exposure. But you could talk — could you talk a little bit more broadly. Some of your travel-related peers have seen macro weakness more broadly than the Middle East into October. Why do you think ride share growth quarter-to-date hasn’t been impacted? And then I guess maybe the bigger picture question there is how do you think more broadly about the economic sensitivity of the business? And then the second question, please, is if active driver growth continues to outpace trip growth, how do you think about balancing a potential take rate opportunity versus expanding use cases and growing the addressable market? Thank you.
Dara Khosrowshahi: Yes. So in general, listen, we’ve been looking for pockets of consumer spending weakness across our platforms, both our mobility platform and delivery platform. We read the news. We watch CNBC just like anyone else. And frankly, we haven’t found it. I think part of the reason is that when you look at consumer spend, one of the US consumer is incredibly strong. And two, I think within the consumer spend bucket, if you look at spend on services versus spend on retail, spend on services is still not back to where pre-pandemic spend was. So we do think that there — the tailwind that we’ve seen in terms of spend on services continues, it could continue going forward. It’s very difficult to predict. And what we have seen with Uber is that Uber is a local type of product.
So I do think that consumers during periods of elevated perceived risk, they sometimes pull back on higher, call it, higher spend product, whether it’s renovating their house or booking a big vacation during uncertain times that they may not, but they’ll treat themselves to break food Sushi delivered to them or they still go out to restaurants. They still go see their friends. So I think the local nature of our business makes us relatively resistant to macro uncertainty because it’s usually the big, the large price product that get priced out first. In terms of active driver growth, we are — active driver growth is absolutely growing faster at this point than trips. We generally want to keep take rate as low as possible because we think that’s the right thing to do long-term and kind of is the — allows us to compound for a much longer time period.
