In its second quarterly earnings release as a public company, Lyft showed it still isn’t afraid to lose money as long as that means surging revenues.
Update: The company’s stock price jumped as high as 12% after-hours following the Q2 earnings release, but by 1:30pm PT the stock had sunk below the day’s close (following a 2.7% bump in its share price before the earnings dropped). The company moving up the lockup date release by more than a month may have spooked investors and caused the swing.
In Q2, Lyft beat on revenue with $867 million for the quarter, compared with $505 million in Q2 of last year, but Lyft also had net losses of $644 million for Q2 compared to $179 million in the same period of 2018. The company pinned their adjusted net loss (which accounts for amortization of intangible assets and stock-based compensation expenses among other expenses) even lower, at $197 million versus $177 million in 2018 Q2.
The losses measure in the hundreds of millions, but they still represent a substantial quarter-over-quarter decrease, all while pumping up revenues to their highest yet. Last quarter, the company earned $776 million in revenues but lost $1.14 billion.
What made Wall Street more happy than the individual quarter’s results was Lyft’s optimism for Q3 as well as the full-year 2019. The company updated its outlook for both.
“We remain focused on reshaping transportation and we are pleased with the continued improvement in market conditions. This environment along with our execution is translating to strong revenue growth and sales and marketing efficiencies. As a result of this positive momentum, we anticipate 2019 losses to be better than previously expected and we are pleased to have updated our outlook,” a statement attributed to Lyft CEO Logan Green reads.
The company’s revenue per rider jumped 22% year-over-year as total riders hit 21.8 million up from 20.5 million last quarter and 15.5 million in Q2 2018.
Lyft hasn’t had the most pleasant debut since it IPO’d in March; as of market open, the stock was down more than 30% from its all-time high, though that percentage will shrink significantly if this after-hours surge recovers.