# Leaked: Lyft losing massive amounts of money, looking for buyer



## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

August 1, 2016

http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-lyft-finances-show-big-losses-2016-8

"In 2015, Lyft posted an operating loss of $360 million revenue of about $200 million, a person familiar with the company's financial statements told the Journal. While Lyft expects to double revenue this year - up to around $450 million - it expects to post an operating loss of more than $200 million, the person told the Journal."


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

hard to believe they spend it all on programmers and incentives. I bet they throw some great parties and live in really nice houses.....


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

Just like any ponzi or pyramid scheme... it pays great if you get in early!


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

Looks like old rehashed news.


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## SacTownDood (Apr 22, 2016)

Between this and the Uber-Didi buyout, translation: Investors have had enough of Travis' BS and Lyft's copycat BS, no more free money. 

The way these numbers read, if rates were where they were at 3 fare cuts ago, both companies would be profitable. 
Question is, which one will be forced to raise fares first?


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

SacTownDood said:


> Question is, which one will be forced to raise fares first?


The raising of rates is one reason, of several, why Uber is playing around with its incentive and bonus programmes in the Capital of Your Nation.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

The reason is simple. In order to compete with Uber, they are forced to lower prices because they do not want to work to help concede that drivers should be employees and be forced to pay a minimum wage. If there was certain stipulations put in place that force Uber and Lyft to have a price floor then they wouldn't have to constantly work to price cut under Uber and with Uber constantly tricking people to invest in their below market equilibrium price ponzi scheme they can't compete with those low prices.

Add to that the fact that Lyft has the most ridiculous logo in the history of mankind, they are continuously alienating guys from taking rides. There is nothing macho about hailing a pink mustache ride from Lyft. They will never get anywhere til they change that logo and brand. Period. End of story. Case closed.

Whoever buys this company is going to be smart enough to rebrand away from that ridiculous logo and brand and will actually have a chance to compete for rides. Furthermore, if they continuously worked to gain drivers, by competing with a smaller commission, then they would be able to gain more drivers and be able to beat Uber.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

They are losing money and so there's obviously only one thing to do - rate cut! Drop the fares again, 'cause that's the way everyone makes more money, ya muppets


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

SacTownDood said:


> Between this and the Uber-Didi buyout, translation: Investors have had enough of Travis' BS and Lyft's copycat BS, no more free money.
> 
> The way these numbers read, if rates were where they were at 3 fare cuts ago, both companies would be profitable.
> Question is, which one will be forced to raise fares first?


Which will raise rates first ?

THE ONE THAT SURVIVES !


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## dirtylee (Sep 2, 2015)

Uber will outlast lyft. Outside of in app tipping, Uber is better all around.


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

I still don't know why they don't try to make the supply-side (drivers) more plentiful rather than the demand-side (riders). And I don't mean by constantly offering incentives and advertising for drivers, I mean taking the Uber drivers that are already out there.

If Oober is paying $1.00 a mile and Lyft is paying $1.20 a mile, drivers will flock to Lyft. Then Uber will start to surge. Lyft will have the best of both worlds -- more drivers and lower prices. Drivers will cherry-pick surge rides on Uber and pretty soon riders will switch to Lyft because its normal rates are lower than Uber's surge rates AND since there are more Lyft drivers the wait is shorter.

The reason Lyft will be destroyed is that they didn't have the brains to understand this. They thought they could simply pay drivers a penny less than Uber and pax would come flocking to Lyft because their ride is $0.17 less. Not gonna happen. There are lots of dynamics at play.

Whoever is running Lyft stopped his business education at Economics 1. "Oooh lower prices equals higher demand. We need more riders therefore we lower prices a little more than Uber and we win!" (A couple of years later...) "Why is it not working????"


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## Papa Sarducci (Jun 20, 2016)

And who just got billions from being bought out in China, Uber. Who bought them out, DiDi. Who has 100 Million invested in Lyft, DiDi. Who owns 18% interest in Uber, DiDi. Who sits on DiDi's board now, Kalanick. Who will OWN Lyft by next year, Uber.


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## wk1102 (Dec 25, 2015)

It's that stupid ass pink mustache..

Looks like Yosemite Sam is doing you around...


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## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd (Aug 17, 2015)

I have zero information about blyft selling itself or their financial results. But here is my question, what am I getting if I bought Lyft? I am a multi-billionaire. I used to own an airline so I already know how to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on bad transportation businesses. 

But I can willingly hand you a certified bank check for $500 million to buy your company lock, stock and barrel. Someone jump in the shark tank and pitch me Lyft. You have two minutes, go!


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

Wil_Iam_Fuber'd said:


> Someone jump in the shark tank and pitch me Lyft. You have two minutes, go!


Meh... I got nothin'


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## Papa Sarducci (Jun 20, 2016)

Wil_Iam_Fuber'd said:


> I have zero information about blyft selling itself or their financial results. But here is my question, what am I getting if I bought Lyft? I am a multi-billionaire. I used to own an airline so I already know how to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on bad transportation businesses.
> 
> But I can willingly hand you a certified bank check for $500 million to buy your company lock, stock and barrel. Someone jump in the shark tank and pitch me Lyft. You have two minutes, go!


Exactly, the only people Lyft is valuable to right now are DiDi and Uber which will likely be one company before long.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

Papa Sarducci said:


> Exactly, the only people Lyft is valuable to right now are DiDi and Uber which will likely be one company before long.


What would Didi have to offer Uber outside China?


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## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd (Aug 17, 2015)

elelegido said:


> Meh... I got nothin'


You my friend are exactly correct! And whomever buys Lyft would also have nothing. Thank you amigo, you just saved me $500 mil.


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Lyft wants to be profitable but at the same time , they really do not want to poach Uber drivers by either offering lower commission or higher rates. They are instead at the same league as Uber in term of treating the drivers. That is a sign of anti competitive behavior. Are they in collusion with Uber ? Possibly.


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## TravisNJ (Apr 7, 2015)

Flarpy said:


> If Oober is paying $1.00 a mile and Lyft is paying $1.20 a mile, drivers will flock to Lyft. Then Uber will start to surge.


Except pax use the cheaper option when there is a discrepancy that large. Pax in Miami wouldn't even switch to Lyft when they were cheaper than Uber for 6 months ($0.90 vs $0.97)


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## wk1102 (Dec 25, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> Lyft wants to be profitable but at the same time , they really do not want to poach Uber drivers by either offering lower commission or higher rates. They are instead at the same league as Uber in term of treating the drivers. That is a sign of anti competitive behavior. Are they in collusion with Uber ? Possibly.


If they were in collusion the rates wouldn't be so low.

How the hell can Uber and Lyft be losing money? I just dont get it, especially Uber. They did 1 billion rides in the last 6 months. 1,000,000,000! That's a lot of zeros. What the hell are the "employee's" salaries? How does a company that has this kind of consumer base and lose money have a 62billion dollar valuation.

I just do not get it.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

I heard on the radio to-day that Lyft had a record July for number of trips.

Lyft is about to roll out a high-end service.


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## Montgomery (Jan 7, 2015)

Another Uber Driver said:


> Lyft is about to roll out a high-end service.


They did in NYC. They call it Premier.


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## Another Uber Driver (May 27, 2015)

^^^^^^^^^^It has not yet come to Washington, but Lyft has sent recruiting e-Mails to its drivers, here.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


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## ExpendableAsset (Aug 12, 2015)

I respect all of your opinions and this lively debate, but I am not sure those numbers mean what you guys think they mean. If you look at business models for companies that intend to compete in global markets, they typically use their revenues to reinvest and expand to rapidly gain market share. Amazon was losing money for over a decade, they are not a failure. Uber has lost more by an order of magnitude, but nobody is calling it game over for them.


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## ExpendableAsset (Aug 12, 2015)

Papa Sarducci said:


> And who just got billions from being bought out in China, Uber. Who bought them out, DiDi. Who has 100 Million invested in Lyft, DiDi. Who owns 18% interest in Uber, DiDi. Who sits on DiDi's board now, Kalanick. Who will OWN Lyft by next year, Uber.


While an interesting train of logic, it seems kind of overstated. Kalanick only has part of Uber, which only has a fraction of Didi, which only has an even smaller fraction of Lyft. It is a long way from ownership or even having a say.


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## dnlbaboof (Nov 13, 2015)

i dont see how uber makes any money either, they lose money as well with all the rate cuts, and also them having to pay guarentees plus pdb that that come from their pocket, they are basically paying out more than they take in from riders.

before the rate cuts when the rate per mile was higher all the money drivers were making were coming from riders, now most is coming from uber from incentives


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SacTownDood said:


> Between this and the Uber-Didi buyout, translation: Investors have had enough of Travis' BS and Lyft's copycat BS, no more free money.
> 
> The way these numbers read, if rates were where they were at 3 fare cuts ago, both companies would be profitable.
> Question is, which one will be forced to raise fares first?


Largest investment in the history of mankind last month in Uber, so...?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ExpendableAsset said:


> I respect all of your opinions and this lively debate, but I am not sure those numbers mean what you guys think they mean. If you look at business models for companies that intend to compete in global markets, they typically use their revenues to reinvest and expand to rapidly gain market share. Amazon was losing money for over a decade, they are not a failure. Uber has lost more by an order of magnitude, but nobody is calling it game over for them.


You're explaining business to a brick wall. Anti-uberers aren't interested in the truth.


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## yojimboguy (Mar 2, 2016)

dnlbaboof said:


> i dont see how uber makes any money either, they lose money as well with all the rate cuts, and also them having to pay guarentees plus pdb that that come from their pocket, they are basically paying out more than they take in from riders.
> 
> before the rate cuts when the rate per mile was higher all the money drivers were making were coming from riders, now most is coming from uber from incentives


I don't see how Uber _loses_ money ever. Maintaining the app and servers, and a bunch of barely-English-literate "support" people us ALL they do. Just about ever other expense is born by the drivers.

But now that I'm thinking of it, perhaps they have other expenses as well. Lets call it _influencing_ legislators for Uber-positive laws. And then there's the fierce team of attorneys to fight off lawsuits from all sides ...


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## dnlbaboof (Nov 13, 2015)

the craziest thing with all the rate cuts..............uber lost a ton of money as well with them......they get less from the riders and the crazy incentives they have to give to keep drivers


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

SacTownDood said:


> Between this and the Uber-Didi buyout, translation: Investors have had enough of Travis' BS and Lyft's copycat BS, no more free money.
> 
> The way these numbers read, if rates were where they were at 3 fare cuts ago, both companies would be profitable.
> Question is, which one will be forced to raise fares first?


Raising fares will make it good for the drivers but it still won't be profitable for a big Corporation because ridership will shrink etcetera etcetera the fact is this business just isn't profitable, it never has been all the big companies have gone out of business since I've been doing this over 20 years ago


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## Paula Provencher (Aug 12, 2016)

Hi , I will told my uncle regarding this.


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