Uber adds Spanish app for customers in NM

Ride-hailing firm hopes to expand service to residents, tourists

Uber on Monday extended its option to request a Spanish-speaking driver to New Mexico — the nation’s most Hispanic state by percentage of population.

The ride-hailing company said the launch of uberESPAÑOL would help expand service and help Spanish-speaking residents and tourists move more freely in the state.

This new feature is available to customers in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces who use the Uber app on a smartphone.

The San Francisco-based company will have only a handful of Spanish-speaking drivers in New Mexico at first, but will add more as word gets out, Steve Thompson, general manager for Uber in New Mexico, said Monday during a news conference at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque.

“We have hundreds of drivers in New Mexico now, so I don’t think there will be a problem,” Thompson said.

New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanic residents — 48 percent — of any state in the nation.

It is the sixth state to get the Spanish service after California, Illinois, Arizona, Texas and Nevada. Arizona is the company’s oldest uberESPAÑOL location, with service in six cities, Thompson said.

Lawmakers this year passed a bill allowing services such as Lyft and Uber to operate legally in New Mexico.

Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, who successfully pushed the bill, said she hoped the launch of uberESPAÑOL leads to further expansion of the ride-hailing services in the state.

For example, Uber and Lyft offer services to Rio Rancho, the state’s third-largest city, but it is hard to get service.