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Comment by tswartz | Hacker News Reader

>Amid reports of Lyft’s financial struggles in its recently leaked financials, it’s obvious why the company seeks to raise so much money — the on-demand transportation market is a tough place to operate, especially with competition like Uber. According to Bloomberg, the ridesharing startup took a net loss of $127 million in the first half of this year while bringing in less than $47 million in revenue.

Does anybody know how this loss compares to Uber? I don't recall any of their financials being leaked recently.

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I don't remember the details, but I think Uber showed a similar revenue/loss ratio...

There was HN discussion about it and the main thing people were saying is there's an opportunity cost in not spending the money (mainly in expansion).

I kind of feel like Uber is in a bit of a "monopoly or bust" position though, using similar 4X techniques to our former favorite tech boogieman (subsidizing driver rates then removing subsidies once growth stops...).

Not quite sure what Lyft is using its money for, though. My impression is there strategy is to not be jerks and focus on US only for now. Guess this is a "good guys lose" situation...

Uber loses at least $470M / year, if not more (unsure if the number is per quarter, half-year, or full year) [1].

Lyft's struggles have nothing to do with their losses, and all to do with the fact that they're losing the market to Uber.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-reportedly-operating-at-...

Uber lost 470m/period. As the article mentions, these figures are outdated by a number of years and completely irrelevant - Uber is hitting more than 2.5 billion in revenue (commission) this year.

According to public information, Lyft is losing approximately 3 to 5 times the amount of money per ride.

If those numbers are indeed out of date (I'm not taking an Uber spokesperson's word for it), I would be inclined to believe they are losing even more than $470M/period, given their extremely aggressive expansion and extremely aggressive fundraising.

In China, yes, but recent Uber aggression has been anything but aggressive. Just look at driver referral incentives been slashed from $750 to $200 (if you're lucky).

> According to public information, Lyft is losing approximately 3 to 5 times the amount of money per ride.

And it sounds like they're struggling to gain market share even given those subsidies.

As both a Lyft and Uber user, it feels as though Lyft is spending a lot more money to "drive loyalty" than Uber via $50 free promos. But I feel their targeting is off because loyalty doesn't appear to increase with more rides for rider nor driver.

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