Lyft top boss says return-to-office trend boosted Q2 results, touts potential for e-bikes
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Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) CEO David Risher said that the company's latest quarterly performance was helped by the return-to-office trend, adding that the ride-hailing service had tieups with some heavyweight names to transport their employees.
LYFT after hours on Tuesday reported a narrower Q2 loss and a 3% Y/Y jump in revenue, helped by a surge in active riders. The company also provided Q3 revenue guidance that was comfortably above estimates.
"Here on the West coast, where things have been a little bit slower to restart, you are seeing more and more companies including Zoom (ZM) saying we want employees back to work for just a couple of days a week, so we see that as a real growth area," Risher told Seeking Alpha in an interview.
"We have ... trial relationships with Cisco (CSCO), Netflix (NFLX) and a couple of other companies where we're kind of helping them bring their employees back to work," Risher added.
Lyft (LYFT) brought on former Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) executive Risher as CEO in April. Under his guidance, the company has cut prices in an attempt to gain inroads into the rideshare market in the U.S., which is dominated by LYFT and larger rival Uber (UBER).
That pricing strategy led to a 3.8% Y/Y decline in revenue per active rider in Q2, but also helped overall active riders jump 8.2% Y/Y to 21.49M versus a consensus of 21.1M.
Additionally, Risher reiterated that LYFT was getting a lot of "inbound interest" for its bikes and scooters business. The top boss especially highlighted the potential of e-bikes.
"A lot of companies are looking at (bikes and scooters) now and saying this is going to be a part of the future for cities, and we can see it particularly when it comes to e-bikes," Risher told Seeking Alpha, adding that just in New York city, nearly 50% of the 140K rides a day were e-bikes.
Class A shares of Lyft (LYFT) on Wednesday were 7.6% lower to $10.68 in mid-day trading, as concerns over the company's pricing strategy overshadowed its Q2 results and strong guidance.
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