American multinational transport company Uber says that there has been a sharp increase in the number of Indians using the ridesharing app abroad during 2023, with the number of overseas travellers being second only to Americans.

In its travel data of India-registered users, Uber shares a peek into global travel trends of Indians.

According to Uber, during the ongoing summer travel season, Indians are expected to surpass records set in previous years.

Uber says that the number of Indians travelling abroad has seen a marked jump over the past two years, with almost a million of them using Uber ridesharing app overseas during the year gone by. 

As per the data, Indians travelled to close to 1,000 cities across 68 countries over the year. While the number of cities they explored increased significantly, most Uber-ed countries stayed the same, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. 

The survey says that summer holidays appear to be the most popular travel time for Indians to travel abroad as schools and colleges go into a break, giving families more time to spend together. The most popular month for overseas travel in 2023 was May, compared to June in 2022. 

Prabhjeet Singh

“Indians have been breaking all travel records over the past couple of years, and it’s heartwarming to see how Uber continues to be their trusted last-mile partner in these travels. Be it the familiarity when landing at an airport in a new city, or the safety when riding late at night, it is a huge mark of trust for us to see Indians book an Uber for their overseas travels,” says Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia.

While overseas, Indians travelled 25 pc longer distances in Ubers on average compared to their trips in India, and tried as many as 21 different products across countries, including Comfort Electric which are premium EVs, Multimodal Transit, an option that includes mass-transit modes such as trains and most ubiquitous UberX option among others. 

The survey says that a lot of the countries Indians travelled to operate peer-to-peer ridesharing, letting people use their personal vehicles to give Uber rides, supporting the gig economy in its truest form. 

A range of luxury vehicle Uber rides for Indians while travelling abroad in 2023 include:

Porsche Cayenne            

Jaguar F PACE   

Range Rover Sport          

Mercedes S450

BMW 740i M Sport         

Lincoln Navigator                            

The statement adds that apart from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, Indians also had some premium EVs show up when they booked Uber rides abroad. Some of them were:

 Jaguar I PACE    

Audi e-tron Sportback   

Mercedes EQE 500          

Ford F150 Lightning