Lyft is seeing record ridership, including an all-time high of 13.9 million rides during July, first reported by Recode and confirmed by TechCrunch via sources familiar with the matter. In addition to the total ride increase, along with a new record for monthly active riders of over 3 million, Lyft also saw significant growth in the use of its Concierge service, a bulk booking service similar to the UberCENTRAL offering just launched by Uber.
Concierge debuted in January after a quiet partner test that started last September. It allows partners, including businesses and organizations, to book rides for customers and control them from a central dashboard. The offering also includes an API, allowing enterprise partners to build Concierge control directly into their existing travel and transport booking solutions.
In addition to doing things like booking trips for outgoing patients at medical facilities, TechCrunch has learned that Walmart is also using Concierge to pilot grocery delivery. Concierge also supports bulk scheduling, meaning businesses can send over a data file containing thousands of ride requests and have Lyft handle their scheduling en masse.
Between the first and second quarter of this year, Lyft says it saw a five-fold increase in how many trips were booked via Concierge, helped along by 4x growth in the total number of partners using the service since its launch.
While Lyft wouldn’t comment on specific monthly ridership numbers, it did provide the following statement regarding the growth of Concierge and general traction:
The company continues to hit new records, and we continue to hear from both passengers and drivers that they choose Lyft because of the hard work our team puts into creating the best experience.
Centralized booking is probably going to be a big driver of future growth for on-demand ride and ride-sharing services – a single big enterprise customer can drive a lot of individual rides, after all. Plus, it’s a good model to bank on in terms of preparing for a future in which autonomous fleets supplant a lot of the need for individual car ownership; you can even foresee a time when a ride to any given business is part and parcel of the general service they offer.