Lyft President John Zimmer (R) and CEO Logan Green speak as Lyft lists on the Nasdaq at an IPO event in Los Angeles March 29, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Lyft will report quarterly earnings after Tuesday’s market close for the first time since going public in March.
Here’s what analysts are expecting from Lyft’s fiscal first-quarter of 2019:
- Loss per share: $1.81 expected, per Refinitiv survey of analysts
- Revenue: $739.4 million expected, per Refinitiv
Lyft had a rocky start to trading, down more than 20% over the last month and over $13 off of its IPO price of $72 per share. The company debuted with a valuation topping $20 billion at the high end of its expected range, but its market cap has since sunk to about $17 billion.
The stock has faced added scrutiny as its top competitor Uber prepares its own initial public offering. Uber is expected to go public later this week. Analysts have remained skeptical of the ride-sharing industry in general, especially after both companies’ IPO prospectuses revealed that neither is turning a profit.
But some have argued Uber is the better bet between the two stocks anyway due to the versatility of its business compared to Lyft’s. Lyft has tried to bill its focus on ride-sharing and mobility as a sign of its deliberate approach compared to Uber’s ambitions to be the Amazon of transportation and logistics.
Analysts will likely be watching for growth across Lyft’s engagement metrics, including total rides and the number of active riders, which measures those who take at least one ride in a quarter. In its S-1 filing, Lyft reported 18.6 million active riders in its fourth quarter of 2018 across 178.4 million rides. In its first quarter of 2018, the company reported 14 million active riders across 132.5 million rides.
While rider metrics have experienced pretty consistent growth, revenue has been less stable, due in part to pricing experiments. Lyft reported revenue per active rider of $28.27 in its first quarter of 2018 and $36.04 in its last quarter of the fiscal year.
Lyft also shared revenue as a percentage of bookings in its IPO prospectus. Bookings represents the total value of rides excluding discounts, tips, fees and taxes, according to the company. Lyft said in the prospectus it uses revenue as a percentage of bookings to measure how effective driver incentives are to meet demand and ensure drivers are used efficiently while on the platform, among other things. Lyft reported revenue as a percentage of bookings at 23.9% in Q1 of 2018 and at 28.7% in Q4 of 2018.
Watch one Lyft investor make the case that it is superior to Uber