"We have incurred net losses each year since our inception and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future. We incurred net losses of $682.8 million, $688.3 million and $911.3 million in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively."
Yeah, that's oversimplifying it, but it's not like they own factories or storefronts or need to buy access to expensive services or something. The vast majority of their "employees" are independent contractors with no healthcare or retirement benefits who get paid by the ride (so Lyft doesn't lose out when business is slow).
It seems like it should be a license to print money, but somehow they're losing cash hand over fist. Are they subsidizing rides all over the world?
Not to mention the salaries you need to pay to stay competitive in the bay area, they seem to have a sizable headcount (~1600 from a quick google search)
To solve this, they must offer guaranteed minimums to drivers to maintain an available network even with low ridership. Without that, passengers are unlikely to find an available ride and will easily give up on the app.
Those guaranteed minimums are expensive, but are true one-time costs. They are no longer needed once the network is established.
Looks like the other driver incentives may not be included in revenue?
>This four percentage point improvement in Revenue as a Percentage of Bookings was driven by greater efficiency and effectiveness of driver incentives, which contributed approximately two percentage points, increased service fees and commissions, which contributed approximately one percentage point and revenue from the Select Express Drive Partner program, which contributed approximately one percentage point.
Revenue is money they take in. If they pay drivers a minimum it will be an expense. I’m assuming under “cost of revenue” or “sales and marketing”, since they don’t categorize drivers as employees but contractors.