Lyft lost $463.5 million in the third quarter of 2019, which was almost twice the amount that the company lost over the same period of time last year. The ride-hailing company brought in nearly a billion dollars in revenue — $955.6 million to be exact — which, compared to $585 million of revenue in the third quarter of 2018, represents an increase of 63 percent year over year.
Lyft and its larger rival Uber have been under pressure from investors to stem their enormous losses and show how they plan to achieve profitability. Lyft CEO and co-founder Logan Green told an audience at the WSJ Tech Live conference earlier this month that he expects the company to become profitable on an adjusted earnings basis at the end of 2021, a year ahead of its original projection.
Uber and Lyft, which both went public this year, have set records for the amount of money lost in the run-up to their respective IPOs. And since going public, both companies have continued to lose money. Last quarter, Lyft reported losing $644 million, or $197 million after adjusting for so-called EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization).
This quarter, Lyft’s net loss includes $246.1 million of stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses as well as $86.6 million related to changes to the liabilities for insurance. That translates into an adjusted net loss of $121.6 million, which is an improvement on the adjusted loss of $245.3 million over the same period last year.
The company says it expects its adjusted net loss to be between $160 million and $170 million in the fourth quarter of the year and between $708 million and $718 million for the entire year. Its annual revenue is projected to be between $3.57 billion and $3.58 billion, the company says.
For comparison, Uber lost $5.2. billion in the second quarter of 2019 alone (before adjusting for stock-based compensation and other expenses). Uber controls about 60 percent of the ride-sharing market in the US, while Lyft has a grip on the rest.
Interestingly, Lyft has slightly scaled back its spending on research and development, which includes its autonomous vehicle development program, this quarter compared to last quarter. Last quarter, the company reported $309.8 million in expenses related to R&D, but only $288.3 million this quarter. Lyft spent over $600 million in the first quarter of the year, almost twice its entire R&D expenses for all of 2018.
On a call with investors, Lyft’s co-founders cited the company’s partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo in Phoenix, in which around 10 of the latter’s minivans are available for rides on Lyft’s app. Lyft has also provided 75,000 rides in self-driving taxis provided by Aptiv in Las Vegas, the company said.
There hasn’t been any updates on Lyft’s in-house autonomous vehicle program since October 2018, when the company revealed a new self-driving car design.
