Lyft’s Fourth Quarter Results Beat Revenue Estimate But Falls Short On Active Riders Expectation

Ride-hailing company Lyft released its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday and while it beat analysts’ estimates on revenue, it fell short of expectations for its active riders. The company’s shares were down over 6 percent in after trading hours.

Lyft’s executives also mentioned that they expect the omicron variant of the Coronavirus to take a toll on its first-quarter results for 2022.

 In the quarter, Lyft reported earnings per share of 9 cents, adjusted, beating the estimate of 8 cents a Refinitiv survey of analysts set. Revenue stood at $970 million, beating the estimate of $940.1 million, according to Refinitiv. In the quarter, the company had active riders of 18.73 million and fell short of the estimate of 20.2 million set by analysts, according to StreetAccount. Revenue per active rider was $51.79 and surpassed the $46.54 analysts at StreetAccount estimated.

With active riders of 18.73 million active riders in the fourth quarter, the figure was up almost 50 percent YoY even though it fell short of analysts’ expectations. When compared to what the company reported in the third quarter, it is also a decline. Lyft reported 18.94 million active riders in the third quarter. The pandemic has really taken a toll on the company and its numbers are still not back to pre-pandemic levels. In the fourth quarter of 2019, Lyft reported active riders of 22.9 million.

Lyft’s guidance for the first quarter of 2022 falls short of analysts’ estimates. The company is of the opinion that the omicron variant of the Coronavirus will take a toll on the company’s results. The company expects between $800 million and $850 million as first-quarter revenue. Analysts per StreetAccount expect guidance of $989.9 million as revenue for the first quarter.

Although the company released guidance for revenue for the first quarter, it didn’t have a projection for active riders. It only said that it expects rides to decline slightly quarter-over-quarter. Analysts, however, expect Lyft to report 21.7 million active riders in the first quarter of 2022, according to StreetAccount.

The company’s new CFO Elaine Paul mentioned that “Despite short-term headwinds from omicron, we remain optimistic about full-year 2022”.

The company’s revenue was up 12 percent quarter-over-quarter to $970 million. It was also up 70 percent YoY. Revenue per active user which stood at $51.79 was up 14 percent YoY.

In the quarter, the company also had a net loss of $258.6 million compared to $458.2 million recorded in the same period in 2020. Lyft mentioned its loss included $164.2 million of stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses. Lyft published an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) profit of $74.7 million. In the third quarter, Lyft reported an adjusted EBITDA of $67.3 million.

Although the company had challenges that included the pandemic, driver supply and demand imbalance, etc. CEO Logan Green said the company sustained driver recovery in the quarter adding that Ride ETAs improved by about 30 percent across all markets it is present. He also added that airport rides also more than doubled in the quarter, a good indicator that the company is making a steady recovery.