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Lyft predicted that drivers would abandon food delivery applications and re-share travel as passenger demand increased with the end of the blockades, claiming that drivers lost the “significant camaraderie and interactions” that occurred with transporting people instead of food.
The company’s latest earnings, which, unlike its rival Uber, does not have its own food delivery app, showed that it has continued to struggle to attract drivers.
John Zimmer, president and co-founder of Lyft, said the demand for pilots had exceeded available drivers since late February, a problem also experienced by Uber, which announced a “stimulus” payment of $ 250 million for drivers last month.
But he said the expiration of federal unemployment benefits during the third quarter would also help solve the problem, as well as return to normal life after the continued deployment of vaccines.
Zimmer argued that as demand returned, car-sharing represented a better deal for workers than food delivery, adding that “Car-sharing also offers a fundamentally different experience, with social interactions that are almost absent. of food delivery.
“After a year of social distancing, drivers tell us they want these conversations in person. They miss the companionship and meaningful interactions they have while using Lyft,” he said.
Lyft said consumers were willing to pay higher prices, offsetting the cost of the added incentives needed to get drivers back on the road.
The number of passengers using the platform during the first quarter of 2021 increased by 8% over the previous three months, although both users and revenue fell by more than a third in pre-pandemic levels.
During the January-March period, Lyft posted revenue of $ 609 million, 36% less than the same period last year, but stronger than Wall Street estimates of $ 558 million, according to FactSet.
Lyft’s net losses for the quarter were worse than expected, at $ 427 million, compared to expectations of $ 320 million, according to Capital IQ estimates, although the loss contained more than $ 300 million. of dollars in one-off payments, Lyft said. It included $ 180.7 million in stock compensation related to its initial 2019 public offering.
The company’s adjusted Ebitda losses were $ 73 million, a strong improvement over analysts ’expectations of $ 139 million and the lowest Ebitda loss since the company went public.
Achieving the company’s EBITDA profitability target during the second half of this year is based on rebalancing the supply of drivers to pilots.
The company said the current mismatch meant increased profits during April for drivers who had returned, with an average hourly earnings of $ 30 per hour, before spending, to its top 25 markets.
Lyft’s share price rose more than 5 percent in out-of-hours trading.
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