Uber
Uber has given one billion rides, the company announced Wednesday.
According to the company, Uber gave its one-billionth ride in London on Christmas Eve last week.
"Marvin and Ara just made our day," the company said in a blog post. "Their £5 London uberX ride together from London Fields, Hackney to Hoxton in Ara’s blue Honda Insight Hybrid was the billionth Uber trip."
It may seem silly to recognize a milestone like reaching a certain number of rides given, but it points to Uber's staggering growth and adoption.
The first Uber ride ever given happened on June 1, 2010 in San Francisco, so delivering a billion rides in five and a half years is pretty astounding.
In a blog post last December, about a year ago, the company said it was doing about a million rides per day, and had given 140 million rides throughout 2014. Now, the company operates in more than 300 cities in 68 countries.
The company is raising a new round of funding that would value it at $62.5 billion — Uber's already the most valuable private tech company in the world, so this just puts more room between it and the world's second-most valuable startup, Xiaomi.
In honor of its billionth ride, Uber says it's giving Ara, the billionth-ride driver, a vacation to the Uber city of his choice, and the rider, Marvin, will get free Uber rides for a year.
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