May 7, 2019 - Technology

Lyft reports big loss despite beating revenue expectations

Kia Kokalitcheva

Illustration of a hand holding a phone glowing with Lyft pink while a dollar sign disappears from the screen. — Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

In its very first quarterly earnings as a public company, Lyft beat analyst's revenue expectations, but that was overshadowed by the large loss it reported.

Why it matters: Lyft beat Uber to the IPO but its stock price has plummeted since debuting on the public market at the end of March.

By the numbers:

Loss per share: $9.02 (adjusted) vs. $1.81 expected, per Yahoo Finance.
Revenue: $776 million vs. $739.48 million expected, per Yahoo Finance.
Lyft's net loss for Q1 was $1.139 billion, which the company says includes "$894 million of stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses, primarily due to RSU expense recognition in connection with our initial public offering."
Lyft had 20.5 million active riders in Q1, up 46% year-over-year, and $37.86 in average revenue per active rider, up 34% year-over-year.

New: Lyft also announced a new partnership with Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car unit, through which the latter will deploy 10 vehicles on Lyft's service in Phoenix.

Lyft's stock price was down more than 3% in after-hours trading after it reported earnings.

Editor's note: The story has been updated with more details about Lyft's results.

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Lyft reports big loss despite beating revenue expectations

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