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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

As a company, is there reason to believe that Uber can better weather the storm? Does Lyft do anything other than rides?

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Lyft is in a much more worse position than Uber. Since Uber is in more locations than Lyft and Uber has Uber Eats and other services, I don't know how Lyft can justify its value.

One thing that's common is that they're both unprofitable and have both been racing to burn cash for years and unfortunately they are now making difficult cuts to save themselves. But the true picture will be revealed on May 6th in their Q1 earnings call.

EDIT: Q1 Earnings call on May 6th, not Q2.

I would interpret the evidence 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Wouldn't the increased footprint mean that Uber has more costs in less profitable areas? (It seems logical that Lyft would have pretty equal coverage in the profitable areas). And Uber Eats + other services hemorrhage money -- I read that Eats has something like a $1b/year burn rate, even leveraging much of Uber's other infra.

(Also, aren't Q2 earnings are usually in July?)

Uber used to have higher prices (in my area) and a lower-quality UI. That's changed in the last year or so, especially now that Uber has all of the "ride safety" features that Lyft lacks.

Uber eats is the biggest delta between the two companies, I suspect they still will need to cut staff though.

There is also Uber Freight business that was ground rapidly recently

And international exposure, Lyft is just in the US and a little in Canada.

Nah, that’s not it. I drove for both in a major city in the months before the virus and outside of peak hours Lyft always has substantially longer pickup times. This is based on a few hundred rides for each company. This means that they have fewer passenger per driver, so the biggest delta is a smaller user base. Once the lockdown began Lyft rides basically evaporated overnight, while Uber was still going strong at certain times and certain places, catering to essential workers. But both are worthless as a way to make money right now.

I believe Lyft generally has a slightly wealthier clientele: more middle-class people choosing not to drive. Uber has more reach in the lower ends of the market. So when the stay-at-home orders flooded in, these middle-class people all stayed at home, while Uber was still serving essential workers.

UberEats is up — higher than Rides even. They can raise prices to turn a profit if they really need (Instacart turned its first profit).

Uber operates globally (and owns minority stake wherever it doesn't operate), so as the world begins to gradually re-open, Uber will capture that revenue even if the US is still fucked.

Uber has $8B cash.

Uber rides were "adjusted EBITDA" profitable for 2 straight quarters before this — take "adjusted EBITDA" with a grain of salt, but it's also not "nothing".

They had scooters for a while, no clue if they shut that down in recent months. Haven't been itching to scoot lately...

I wonder if a giant will scoop up one of these companies after they are beaten to the point of death?

Maybe Facebook?

“Bringing People Closer Together”

Seems to fit...

Uber is in a much better position to capitalize on Eats as well as non US recovery (given that it seems the US is on one of the worst paths of most developed economies). Hell if anything I can see some Western European countries finally unbanning Uber just to stimulate some more economic activity. Italy/Spain/Germany can't afford to be as protectionist moving forward.

Considering they somehow couldn't make a profit before this, I'd be surprised.

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