Lyft’s revenue grew to $765 million in the second quarter of this year – a 125% improvement compared to the same period in 2020, when the first shelter-in-place orders took hold around the United States due to the COVID pandemic.
And the Q2 revenue figure is an increase of 26% compared to the first quarter of this year when revenue was $609 million.
Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $23.8 million – marking Lyft’s first quarterly adjusted EBITDA profit since its founding in 2012 and reaching that goal a quarter earlier than predicted in its most recent guidance.
During a call with analysts, Lyft CFO Brian Roberts says the company also expects to achieve adjusted EBITDA profitability on a full year basis for 2021.
And he says the company beat its outlook in every metric.
“Q2 was truly exceptional. We grew active riders by more than 3.6 million from the prior quarter, generated 125% year-over-year revenue growth and achieved adjusted EBITDA profitability. At the same time, drivers shared in this outperformance with record hourly earnings,” Roberts says.
“And in July driver earnings remained strong as demand for our platform continued to grow despite increases in reported COVID case counts.”
Lyft’s active riders in Q2 were 17.1 million, an increase of 27% compared to Q1 of this year and nearly 100% year-over-year. One notable area - airport rides, which reached 8.3% of total rideshare rides in June, up from 1.6% in April 2020 and nearly at the December 2019 level of 9.5%.
As a percentage of revenue, sales and marketing expense of 11.6% was nearly the same as Q1 when it was 11.4%.
When asked about the status of Lyft Pink, the brand’s membership program that launched in December 2019, Lyft
co-founder and CEO Logan Green says, “It’s a program we are still very excited
about and continually investing in adding new benefits.”
But he continues, “As far as marketing Pink at this moment –
we’ve been holding back as we focus on the supply side of our market. Pink will
play a big role in the future of the company, but right now it’s all about
supply, so we are leaning in on all dimensions to bring new drivers onto the
road and to engage existing drivers and make sure we have a great driver
waiting for every rider.”
Analysts also asked about the Lyft’s
announcement last week that it is partnering with Ford and Argo AI to make autonomous
ride-hailing a reality, with Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer saying
it is a credit to the company’s ongoing technological innovation.
“I think what we are really demonstrating is the path to
commercializing self-driving vehicles at scale is through the Lyft network,” he
says.
“It goes back to the point we’ve made about the marketplace
technology – we can help drivers be more successful, Lyft be more successful,
riders have more affordable rides and AV suppliers get a better return on their
cars because of all these investments we’ve made under the hood that are
leading to this great quarter.”