Dive Brief:
- Uber and Lyft both reported revenue growth and increased ridership year over year in the third quarter and compared with the second quarter.
- Chief executives of both companies cited strong consumer travel as a key driver of growth during their earnings calls.
- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi touted the success of its “Uber One” membership program on the Nov. 7 earnings call while Lyft CEO David Risher pointed to the expansion of its “Women+ Connect” program that matches women and nonbinary drivers with women and nonbinary riders.
Dive Insight:
The two major ride-hailing companies continued a pattern of quarterly increases in rider activity year over year, although Uber holds a three-to-one advantage in monthly U.S. ride-hailing sales, according to Bloomberg Second Measure. The consumer analytics company also noted that average monthly sales per customer in the U.S. in September was $93 for Uber versus $87 for Lyft.
Uber reported 2.4 billion total trips during Q3, a 25% year-over-year increase, which includes ride-hailing and delivery across all geographies where the company operates. “Trip growth was powered by strong audience and frequency trends as consumer activity remains robust heading into our busiest period of the year,” Khosrowshahi said on the earnings call.
“Travel has been absolutely booming,” the Uber CEO said, adding that the company has a very high penetration of the travel consumer. “What we’re seeing now, back-to-school is also going very, very strong.”
Khosrowshahi explained that Uber appeals to consumers across income levels; the ability to reserve a ride in advance gives higher-income riders greater assurance of an available ride, while shared rides draw in lower-income consumers.
For the Q3 period, Lyft reported 187.4 million rides, including bike and scooter rides. Lyft serves only the U.S. and Canada. “In the past few weeks, our gross bookings have been the highest in our history,” Risher said on Lyft’s Nov. 8 earnings call.
“With return-to-office, morning commute rides grew even faster, up more than 30% year-on-year the last week in September,” Risher said. He added that the fastest-growing region in the third quarter was the West Coast.
Lyft added 50 cities to its “Women+ Connect” program this month after an initial launch in five cities. “Only 15% of driver hours are driven by women,” Risher said. “So that shows there’s a huge upside in focusing on making women feel more comfortable driving and riding obviously, which can really generate all kinds of growth over the long-term.”
There was no mention by Lyft in the earnings reports or on the call of the company’s previously reported desire to sell or find a strategic partner for its bike and scooter business.
