Ridesharing
company Lyft says it sees signs of a return to business travel.
Speaking
on the company’s Q3 earnings call, chief financial officer Brian Roberts said, “I'd
say we're beginning to see an uptick in business travel, but it's early. And we
expect that this will become more pronounced as more companies return to the
office.”
His
optimism about a return came, in part, from its airport ride statistics. Roberts
said “airport rides reached 8.5 per cent of total rideshare rides in Q3. And if
you go back two years ago, airport rides were 9.1 per cent of total rides in Q3
of 2019. So while leisure has been strong, we believe some of these airport
rides [are] actually the beginning of corporate travel.”
Roberts said that many companies had postponed
the return to the office until Q1 2022 following the summer rise in Covid cases
in the US.
“This is pronounced in a city like
San Francisco...San Francisco is only 40 per cent recovered,” he added. “I'm willing to
bet San Francisco will regain its former glory.”
Lyft’s Q3 revenues reached US$864.4 million against US$499.7
million in the third quarter of 2020, an increase of 73 per cent year-over-year.
This compares to pre-Covid Q3 revenues of US$955.6 million in 2019.
Despite the challenges of Covid, the company has
trimmed net losses to US$71.5 million versus US$459.5 million in 2020 and $463.5
million in 2019.
Increasing ride frequency by users drove the
company’s revenue per active rider figure to a record US$45.13, helping it
achieve a second consecutive profitable quarter on an adjusted EBITDA basis. The
number of active riders increased to 18.9 million, up from a low of 8.7 million
at the start of the pandemic.
Lyft’s co-founder and CEO Logan Green said, “We had
a great quarter. Driver supply materially improved in Q3, up nearly 45 per cent
versus last year, reflecting strong new driver trends. We are well positioned
for a continued recovery and I’m excited to build on the momentum in our
business.”