Lyft vs. Uber: A Tale of Two S-1’s

Perhaps not surprisingly, because they have more expensive rides, a larger percent of Lyft bookings ends up as gross profit (revenue less direct costs to serve it, like insurance costs) — ~13% in Q4 2018 compared with ~9% for Uber. The main driver of this seems to be higher take rate (% of bookings that a company keeps as revenue) — nearly 30% in the case of Lyft in Q4 2018 but only 20% for Uber (and under 10% for UberEats)

Note: Uber uses a different definition of take rate in their filings based on a separate cut of “Core Platform Revenue” which excludes certain items around referral fees and driver incentives. Whereas Lyft once lagged Uber by almost 50% on gross profit per user at the beginning of 2017, Lyft has now surpassed Uber even after adding UberEats and other new business revenue to the mix.

Source: benjamintseng.com