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Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

economist.com

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Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#41

Post by notahacker »

mimixco wrote: post #23
SilasX wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the summary in the child twitter link: >We hope in the future there will be driverless cars and that we can then make money because no drivers but other people are developing them too. Nice! It's common to think that self-driving cars will be Uber's salvation, but even then, they'll have to come with other SDC providers, so there's no moat. They'd have lower costs, but so would everyone else, and so they'd have…

The self driving car idea won't help Uber or Lyft for two reasons. First, neither company has the tech experience to build one. Second, and more importantly, both companies would have to buy and maintain the cars which isn't financially viable.

And in the (imho unlikely) scenario that fully autonomous taxis are a viable mass market opportunity in the foreseeable future, both companies would find that rivals who actually do make the cars and have networks of maintenance centres are in a much better competitive position. Making the pricing and matching app isn't the difficult part, and Uber's existing driver base ceases to have value

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#42

Post by kingkawn »

notahacker wrote: post #28
wsc981 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes one wonder how Grab compares, which is popular in Asia. I believe most Grab drivers in Thailand most likely earn an above average wage. For example a short drive from Chiang Mai central bus station to Chiang Mai airport cost me 208 Baht (~7 USD) while the average Thai daily wage is probably around 300 Baht. I also paid a tip (240 Baht total). Of course Grab gets a share of the income, but I’d guess it’s less th…

Presuambly you have to buy and maintain a half decent car to enter that market, which is difficult if you have the financial resources of someone earning 300 baht a day. And with rather less capital outlay you can also earn 200 baht from short tuk tuk rides for tourists...

A lot of Grab’s drivers are working as motor bike taxis in Southeast Asia

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#43

Post by forgotmyhnacc »

return1 wrote: post #21

Uber and lyft look like a charity set up by VCs to provide people with cheaper transportation. Who knows what will happen once they increase fares as they promise to investors

We already have seen the effects of non subsidized fees: mass protests.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-drivers-dr...

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#44

Post by ummonk »

SilasX wrote: post #11
wonderwonder wrote: post #9

Very interesting process going on right now with Lyft & Uber both losing money and some of their drivers trying to stage protests and strikes. The drivers appear to rely on the company as their primary source of income and want more money yet at the same time the companies are operating at a loss. Were they to increase wages (as % of every ride) it stands to reason the losses would widen. If they get to wide the comp…

That would only be true if their unit profits were low or negative. On each ride they make a lot of money. They lose money because of their huge, ride-count-independent fixed costs, like legal defense and marketing. So it's not necessarily true that giving the riders a larger cut would widen the loss, if it came with a scale-back on all the marketing.

A lot of the marketing budget goes to driver incentives, so it wouldn’t help the drivers if they cut back on that to reduce the cut they take from the ride (which is only 25% btw, so diver comp can only go up 33%).

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#45

Post by chollida1 »

LifeofPi314 wrote: post #34
chollida1 wrote: post #4

When Lyft was doing their road show there were a few analysts who had price targets of $45 as Lyfts fair value at IPO with an acknowledgement that the amount of shares available would double, and possibly triple when all shares were off restriction, meaning that the $45 price target was a best case and we would probably see far lower once people can sell. This is a company that has maybe 33 million shares outstanding…

Could you please tell me how do you find out what the borrow rates are for short shares and how many are being shorted?

Bloomberg terminal will give you a lagging number for SI(Short interest).

If you want a current indicator you have to pay for it from companies like Markit that poll hedge funds. The idea being that if you want to know the number you pay by including your own data that they can then show to other funds in aggregate.

For the borrow rate you ask your prime brokerage(like a bank but for holding equities/derivatives/etc). They'll go find you shares and figure out what rate to charge you, while adding their own rate on top.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#46

Post by jahlove »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #38

I don't know what the end game for these companies is. Most average people would never use uber or lyft for transportation on even a semi regular basis if those companies didn't heavily subsidize the rides.

doesn't the ride cost go down substantially if they ever get autonomous vehicles on the road? I believe that is the end goal.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#47

Post by bduerst »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #32
warp_factor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analysts predict where the stock is going in the short term based on "sentiments" and "emotion". I wouldn't bet anything on them.

if Analysts knew so much they would be rich instead of providing advice, which I've found to be hit or miss, to other people.

Maybe they're on their way there? Gotta start somewhere. Maybe not ridesharing IPOs though.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#48

Post by ummonk »

Invictus0 wrote: post #30
Spooky23 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers are independent agents who have every right to demand better conditions. It’s especially important to chisel every penny out of a company that will likely vanish in a short number of years. Lyft has bled money from day 1, so justifying stiffing the workers on the basis of accelerating losses isn’t logical at all. Now that the investors have cashed in, perhaps they can double down on patents on robo-cabs and s…

How can you say that Lyft is "stiffing" the drivers when they lose money on every ride? Where is the extra money for the drivers supposed to come from? Every passenger has the opportunity to tip if they want: would you also say that restauranteurs are stiffing the waitstaff?

Well restaurants do stiff the waitstaff by paying them less than minimum wage, but that doesn’t really apply here. Only would apply to Instacart.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#49

Post by bduerst »

SilasX wrote: post #36
bduerst wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're hoping you'll buy a self-driving car and then let them pay you a minimal fee to use it when you're not. The problem is that self-driving cars will change car ownership needs, and that there could be entirely different companies in the space when it does finally come around.

It's not unrealistic to roll that out as a profitable service. It is unrealistic to expect that to be a moat-profitable income source for Uber, when you can rent that same SDC to Lyft -- or Tesla, for that matter [1] -- who will offer competitive terms. [1] If they offer it for their own cars, they could probably extend the platform to allow outside cars, perhaps with different branding.

Yep, the landscape will probably be entirely different and we'll be talking about the next ridesharing unicorn that managed to corner the self-driving rideshare market.

Re: Lyft’s revenues double, losses quintuple and prospects darken

#50

Post by [deleted] »

LifeofPi314 wrote: post #34
chollida1 wrote: post #4

When Lyft was doing their road show there were a few analysts who had price targets of $45 as Lyfts fair value at IPO with an acknowledgement that the amount of shares available would double, and possibly triple when all shares were off restriction, meaning that the $45 price target was a best case and we would probably see far lower once people can sell. This is a company that has maybe 33 million shares outstanding…

Could you please tell me how do you find out what the borrow rates are for short shares and how many are being shorted?

[deleted]
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