Many still question unit economics of ridesharing. One proxy is to look at Lyft on a per ride basis.
Lyft makes ~$.95/ride in contribution (Rev-COGS-Ops-S&M). That's $1.14 improvement since Q4 18.
Not enough to cover R&D+G&A yet, but underlying unit economics appear decent.
Lyft doesn't disclose # of rides anymore, but flexing up/down by 10% moves contribution per ride by ~5%, so close enough IMO.
Biggest improvements come from gross margin and reduction in sales & marketing.
Can see market rationalization play out in the quarterly progression.
Lyft and then Uber both IPO'd at a time when numbers looked horrid. Lyft's topline was fine, but underlying economics poor. Uber was massively decelerating.
Would the IPOs have gone better off the back of improved 2H numbers, or more likely, did the IPOs cause the inflection...
Uber is far more complicated. Need the 10K to parse through regions. But it's structurally more profitable than Lyft in the US, so you can roughly guesstimate what rides will be * what contribution profit per ride, back into US profitability, and then create ROW ridesharing.
Re: Uber being structurally more profitable, Morgan Stanley estimates US Ridesharing generated $367M of segment EBITDA and $58M inclusive of a 40% allocation of R&D/G&A and ATG.
By this math, Uber is making ~$.14 of fully allocated EBITDA per ride in the US.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.