Estimate how many restaurants could adopt Wallet in one year at global scale

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Uber is a mobility and delivery platform; its products include rides, Uber Eats, grocery and retail delivery, freight, driver and courier tools, and marketplace pricing.

Uber is considering the potential global adoption of a Wallet product by restaurants within one year. In this context, restaurants may include merchant partners that use Uber’s delivery marketplace and potentially adjacent food-service businesses in markets where Uber operates. Your task is to estimate how many restaurants could adopt Wallet globally over a 12-month period.

This is a guesstimate question, so the focus is on structuring the market, defining what “adoption” means, making transparent assumptions, and pressure-testing the result. You should consider Uber’s global footprint, merchant penetration, differences across mature and emerging markets, and how restaurant willingness to use a wallet-style financial product may vary by region, restaurant size, payment behavior, and operational need.

The estimate should be framed as a practical business sizing exercise, not as a product recommendation. You are expected to reason from available proxies, segment the opportunity, and identify the assumptions that most influence the final number.

The experience should consider:

- The precise unit being estimated: unique restaurants, active merchant locations, or restaurant brands.

- A clear definition of “adopt Wallet,” such as enrollment, first transaction, recurring usage, or balance-holding behavior.

- The relevant global restaurant population and the subset addressable by Uber’s delivery or merchant ecosystem.

- Differences by geography, market maturity, restaurant type, chain versus independent merchants, and digital payment readiness.

- Adoption drivers such as payout speed, fee management, promotions, working-capital needs, and integration into existing merchant workflows.

- Adoption constraints such as regulation, trust, onboarding complexity, accounting needs, payment rails, and competition from existing banking or marketplace tools.

- Assumptions around awareness, eligibility, conversion, activation, and retention within the first year.

- Sensitivity checks and sanity checks against Uber’s scale, merchant base, comparable marketplace adoption patterns, and operational rollout capacity.

Your goal is to produce a defensible estimate with a clear calculation path, explicit assumptions, and a range or confidence view that would help Uber assess whether Wallet adoption among restaurants could become a meaningful global opportunity within one year.