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Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET
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Image source: The Motley Fool.Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ETNeed a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.comContinue reading
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET
CALL PARTICIPANTS
- Chief Executive Officer — David Risher
- Chief Financial Officer — Erin Brewer
- Vice President, Investor Relations and ESG — Erin Rheaume
TAKEAWAYS
- Gross Bookings — Up 19% year over year, reflecting continued business momentum reported by management.
- Adjusted EBITDA — Increased by 25% year over year, as highlighted in prepared remarks.
- Record Free Cash Flow — Achieved $1.12 billion on a trailing twelve-month basis, reported as an all-time high.
- Share Repurchase — Largest quarterly repurchase in company history at $300 million in the quarter.
- Partnership Ride Mix — Partnership-tagged ride requests reached 27% of total rides, growing from previous quarters, signaling greater partner contribution.
- Rides Growth — Noted double-digit rides growth during seasonal peak events; March set a new company record for highest weekly ride volume.
- U.S. Market Share — Gained share sequentially from Q4, with management noting stability or growth across regions where AVs are deployed.
- Canada Performance — Canadian ride volume growth was approximately 50%, significantly outpacing U.S. growth.
- California Insurance Mandate — Growth in California outpaced other top regions during the quarter due to insurance reform effects.
- High-Value Modes — Growth in high-value ride modes exceeded 35% year over year; company described significant headroom for further penetration.
- International Expansion — Acquisition of GET’s U.K. business closed in the week of the call, adding to broader presence in over 120 countries.
- FreeNow Acquisition — The business is now growing, with a $1 billion annual run rate at acquisition and expected growth into 2026.
- Driver Incentives — Company “increased incentives per ride by 17%” during the quarter, described as a deliberate, return-focused move enabled by broader P&L leverage.
- AI Organizational Adoption — Over 80% of engineers adopted a new AI tool in 35-45 days, according to management.
- Business Rewards Program — First-time rides on rewards-eligible business profiles grew 59% year over year; eligible riders took 25% more monthly rides.
- AV Deployment — Construction of Waymo’s state-of-the-art AV depot in Nashville underway, with hybrid AV launches targeted for later in the year.
- Guidance — At midpoint, management guided to gross bookings growth of approximately 20% and adjusted EBITDA expansion of “more than 30%” year over year.
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RISKS
- Weather negatively impacted overall rides volume by approximately 3 million rides in the quarter, with bikes accounting for over half this total.
SUMMARY
Lyft (LYFT 0.49%) underscored a multi-faceted growth story featuring strong financial execution, a sharp expansion into premium and international segments, and a deepening strategic focus on automation and partnerships, all supported by management’s increased guidance for the coming year. New records in both free cash flow and share repurchases highlight internal capital discipline within an environment of expanding gross bookings and adjusted EBITDA. The company’s detailed disclosures around rides mix, cross-border activity, incentive spending, and technology adoption provide investors clear visibility into cyclical, seasonal, and structural trends affecting the business.
- David Risher claimed, “March, we delivered our highest ever number of rides in a week,” indicating real-time demand inflection.
- Erin Brewer stated, “Over the last twelve months, we have generated a record $1.12 billion in free cash flow,” reflecting continued operational strength.
- Partnership-tagged rides achieved a record 27% share, with United Airlines and DoorDash noted as drivers of both ride frequency and higher bookings per ride.
- Management indicated that growth from insurance reform in California has begun to manifest, with growth in that region outpacing all other top markets.
- Sequential pricing for Lyft standard rides was “pretty stable from Q4 to Q1,” per Erin Brewer, despite ongoing mix shifts toward higher-value ride modes and geographic expansion.
- The addition of FreeNow and GET positions Lyft for integrated, global AV rollouts, with a 2027 timeline for fully unified cross-platform access.
- AI and automation have taken firm root organizationally, supporting higher productivity and execution with minimal headcount increases.
- The largest quarterly share repurchase in company history signals both confidence in ongoing cash generation and a willingness to return capital to shareholders.
- Guidance calls for acceleration in gross bookings to approximately 20% and adjusted EBITDA to expand by more than 30% year over year at the midpoint.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARY
- AV: Autonomous Vehicle—driverless vehicle technology deployed for passenger rides.
- ODD: Operational Design Domain—locations, conditions, and constraints under which an autonomous vehicle is designed to operate.
- Contra-revenue incentives: Incentive payments that are booked as reductions to revenue, typically to soften rider or driver pricing or promote bookings.
- FreeNow: European taxi and rideshare platform acquired by Lyft, representing a shift toward international and regulated market penetration.
- GET: UK-based B2B taxi service newly acquired to deepen Lyft’s London and European presence.
- Lyft Black: High-end ride mode within Lyft’s network offering premium vehicles and service.
- Lyft Teen: Service product targeting younger riders, expanding addressable market for family transportation.
- Lyft Silver: Service product suiting older adults, designed to capture incremental ride frequency from senior demographics.
- TBR: Chauffeur and high-end rides business acquired by Lyft, focusing on business and premium travel segments.
Full Conference Call Transcript
David Risher: Hello, everyone. Q1 represented another strong quarter for Lyft, Inc. We again delivered on our financial commitments and again had double-digit growth in active riders, gross bookings, and adjusted EBITDA year over year, further setting ourselves up for a global hybrid AV future. Rideshare demand remained healthy. We saw double-digit rides growth around peak events like Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, and Saint Patrick’s Day. Stepping back, our share of the U.S. rideshare market has grown from three years ago when I joined, and has held above that point ever since, with an increase in Q1 over last quarter. And in March, we delivered our highest ever number of rides in a week.
Taken together with our financial results, this continues to validate our thesis that customer obsession drives profitable growth. Looking globally, we are now operating in over 120 countries around the world and have further deepened our presence in London with our acquisition of GET’s U.K. business, which we just officially closed this week. And finally, we took significant steps forward with our partner Waymo in Nashville for the construction of a state-of-the-art AV depot. We continue to be extremely bullish about AVs’ ability to expand our market and about our own capacity to operate them at industry-leading utilization levels, the ultimate driver of profitability.
And with that, let me turn it over to Erin to take you through a few financial highlights.
Erin Brewer: Thanks, David. The consistent execution David just described translated directly to strong financial results. In the first quarter, gross bookings were up 19%, and adjusted EBITDA up 25% year over year. Over the last twelve months, we have generated a record $1.12 billion in free cash flow. And during Q1, we executed our largest quarterly share repurchase ever, totaling $300 million in the quarter. Looking forward, our guidance reflects continued momentum across the business. At the midpoint of our range, we expect gross bookings to accelerate to approximately 20% and adjusted EBITDA to expand by more than 30% year over year. And with that, we will take your questions.
Erin Rheaume: Let us dive into Q&A. If you have joined via the web, please use the raise hand icon, which can be found at the bottom of your application. When you are called on, please unmute your line and ask a question. Please limit to one question. We will now open the call for questions. We will now pause for a moment to assemble.
David Risher: Okay.
Erin Rheaume: First question comes from Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs.
David Risher: Okay. Great. Hopefully, you can hear me okay.
Eric Sheridan: Wanted to dive into the partnerships and how they continue to evolve. What are the key learnings as these partnerships continue to build in their momentum and build in their duration in terms of them as stimulants of increased frequency on your platform or stimulants of increased new rider growth on the platform more broadly? We would love to get a better sense of color there. Appreciate it.
David Risher: Sure. Hey, Eric, it is David. I will take it. Maybe Erin will tag-team with me a little bit here as well. Super good question, and I think I am going to reset the table for one second because I think the role of partnerships continues to be incredibly important to our current business and will be incredibly important in our AV business. How we perform as a partner is actually a good predictor, and how our partners perform is a good predictor of the future. To your question, we got a record number of rides this quarter from partnership-tagged ride requests, about 27%, I think. That is a big deal.
I think when we first started talking about this, we were 20%, then 22%, then 25%, and 27%. Why? Two reasons. Number one, we partner with great organizations that have huge TAMs. If you look at some of our most recent ones, DoorDash is still only about a year and a half old. United is more recent. Even Southwest Airlines through their credit card program. These are enormous programs. They represent a huge opportunity for us to acquire new customers. Those customers are different. For example, DoorDash customers tend to be very heavy users, and you can understand this. People eat three times a day, and they tend to take rides relatively more often than others.
You saw us double down on that partnership by expanding it to Canada. You look at United Airlines. United Airlines is a different vibe. They tend to be more business customers. We out-index in some of United’s big hubs, Chicago being a good example where we had great growth this past year. They tend to be airport rides, not surprisingly, which means higher bookings per ride, which tends to mean higher profits. How do we reward United customers? We give them miles, which they have done for years now. We are over 350 million miles awarded, right around there. That is a big deal. Then a couple of weeks ago, we announced Pay with Miles, which is amazing.
United MileagePlus customers can pay with their miles on Lyft, Inc. It is an industry first, and it deepens that relationship. You put all these things together, and you get a portfolio. Some tend to drive frequency and new customer acquisition a little bit more. Some tend to drive other behaviors that we like, like airport rides. Super important. Maybe I will talk about AV partners another time. I do not think that was the core of your question. We remain very committed to really developing the ecosystem, going deeper and deeper into the TAM, which is quite large.
Eric Sheridan: Great. Thank you.
David Risher: Sure.
Erin Rheaume: Great. The next question will be Doug from JPMorgan.
Analyst: Oh, hi. This is Niraj on for Doug. A couple of questions. One is on the SF commentary. I think you mentioned that you have continued to gain share and also saw rides increase by 20% in the ODD. Just curious, given Uber has said they have gained share in the last six months as well, how do the share dynamics work there? And the next one, have you started seeing any elasticity from the California insurance mandate? Thank you.
David Risher: Sure. I will take the first half, and then Erin can take the second half. Broadly speaking, as we have said before, we think AVs are an incredible positive for rideshare because it is a great product, and over time that brings new people into the rideshare ecosystem. When we look across, in aggregate, all of the regions where AVs are in the marketplace, we have effectively held share pretty steady. That is a good indication because it means that as new riders are coming on, the whole pie is growing. San Francisco, we are doing great. We have had nice growth in San Francisco. These things are always multivariable.
We are also doing some marketing in San Francisco, so that is a confounding factor. We like what we see in San Francisco. When I look at what others say, they maybe pick six months for a particular reason, I am not sure. Broadly speaking, I feel pretty good about our position in SF.
Erin Brewer: And happy to comment on California. On our previous earnings conference call, we talked about the insurance reform in California that we expected to deliver great value to riders and to drivers. We further talked about how we expected that to translate into increasing demand over time and gaining momentum in the back half of the year. As we got into February and March and into the second quarter, we are seeing that growth begin in California. That growth in the first quarter outpaced other top regions. We are starting to see those effects, and we look forward to that momentum continuing for the balance of the year.
Analyst: Got it. Thank you both.
David Risher: Thank you. Sure.
Erin Rheaume: Our next question will be Nikhil from Bernstein.
Nikhil Devnani: Hey. Thank you for taking the question. I wanted to ask about the rides growth and appreciate the callout in the letter. The mid-single-digit North America volume, if I am reading it right, it looks like Canada is growing much faster, almost 50%. It would be helpful if you could outline what you saw in the U.S. business on a ride volume basis, and the big-picture factors that maybe weighed on that in the quarter. It seems like it has decelerated over the last few quarters. Just your perspective on what is happening there would be helpful. Thank you.
David Risher: For sure. Hey, Nikhil. A couple things. First, level set on the data and then talk about what we are seeing. We grew both in the United States and in Canada, to be super clear. Canada outgrew the U.S. I do not think it was quite to the degree you are talking about, but it was significant. We did grow something like 50% year over year in Canada. North America is a huge region, super diverse, with a lot of geographies and segments. In Canada for sure, but also low-scale markets that we have been talking about for six or seven quarters, that is where we are seeing outsized growth.
Low-scale markets, you can imagine the Milwaukees or the Pittsburghs, sometimes second- and third-tier cities or even more rural areas where there is a huge amount of TAM left and underpenetrated. In some of the largest cities where rideshare has been active the longest, I would say the industry on average saw slightly lower growth rates this past quarter. That is an industry thing related to S-curves and being in markets for a long time. To reaccelerate growth in some of those markets, segments become interesting. Lyft Silver addresses older people, who take a lot of rides, and once they become Silver members, they take more rides. Lyft Teen is very new with a huge, replenishing opportunity.
Partnerships in major cities help. DoorDash has a nationwide footprint. United Airlines has real hubs, and some of those hubs are where we are seeing really good growth. We saw double-digit growth in both New York and San Francisco; some of that is also marketing. We are leaning into the “check Lyft” idea. National studies show when people check both apps, they tend to save money. That is a powerful message and one that favors us because of our pricing strategy and because if you are not even looking at our app, how can you be saving money? So there is a lot of room left to go. We see a lot of vectors for growth.
It is why we are saying rides will accelerate overall; we are seeing acceleration in Q2 and beyond. Maybe I will turn it over to Erin.
Erin Brewer: Sure. I will offer a little color, Nikhil. In our prepared remarks, we quantified the impact that weather in the first quarter had on our overall rides, roughly about 3 million rides. A little more than half of that was bikes, given the severity of the weather in the Northeast. Beyond that, a couple of seasonal factors: we always have a deceleration in the bikes business from Q4 to Q1; same with FreeNow. Those both seasonally accelerate into the second quarter. That, in addition to the areas David mentioned, including California momentum and a very healthy marketplace, underpins our view of acceleration into Q2.
Zooming out, nothing has changed as we think about our trajectory in 2026 and our overall objective to deliver north of a billion rides for the full year.
Nikhil Devnani: Thank you very much.
Erin Rheaume: Next question will be Ben from Deutsche.
Benjamin Black: Great. Thank you for taking my questions. So the theme this quarter has been—AI productivity and the investments companies are making into tokens, for instance. How do you think about balancing the need to maintain your improving margin trajectory today versus growing talent and also investing in these tools to support productivity? And then secondly, what are you seeing in the market this quarter that required you to increase incentives per ride by 17%? Can you touch on that as well, please?
David Risher: Sure. We will tag-team this. Maybe just state the obvious: AI is amazing. It is rolling through our org at lightning pace. I was looking at AI adoption among our engineers. We have a strategic relationship with Claude, and a new tool has gotten to 80-some percent adoption over the course of 35 to 45 days. How we think about it: AI builds capacity and increases speed. Capacity and velocity. We see examples across the organization. We are becoming a more global org, which requires work around data, privacy, security, and systems integration. A lot of that is not particularly customer value-add, but you have to do it.
Our team has been crushing it without having to hire a bunch of people because we are relying on new AI tools we have built or co-developed. That allows us to get things done. Same with customer-facing things; that is a whole topic for another time. Broadly, we run a lean ship. AI allows us to move faster, build capacity so staff can be more productive or work on more things simultaneously.
Erin Brewer: I will take the question on incentives and start with our usual line about incentives in this business, which fall in two places in our P&L, the contra-revenue line and the sales and marketing line. They are used dynamically in the marketplace to balance and optimize overall. Stepping back, that is why we always say we are optimizing our P&L as we think about gross bookings and EBITDA. On contra-revenue incentives overall year over year, that has been a source of leverage. In the first quarter, we had our highest driver hours ever. Very strong engagement overall.
We talked in prepared remarks about our most recent driver preference survey; again, super strong results, so you see some leverage there in the contra-revenue line. As I think about sales and marketing incentives, it is important to chat from a P&L perspective. In the quarter, you see strong revenue growth, gross margins expanding year over year, insurance being a point of leverage. We continue with a very disciplined fixed cost base. Why is all of that important to incentive? Because those are the things that allow us to invest when we see great return opportunities in the rider incentive line. We do it deliberately and focused on long-term ROI.
Some of that strong performance throughout our P&L gave us the opportunity to take advantage of strong investment opportunities, especially at a time when the marketplace is performing so well. And we delivered across all of our financial commitments. Hopefully, that gives a little color on how we managed that piece in the quarter.
Benjamin Black: Great. Yes. Thank you.
Erin Rheaume: Next question is John Blackledge with TD Cowen. John. Hey, John, we are going to come back to you. Okay? We are going to go to Mike with—
Erin Rheaume: Oh, I can hear somebody. Is that John?
Nikhil Devnani: Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. First time Zoom. No. It is okay. I am kidding. Two questions. Could you talk about the strength in the high-value modes and how much runway there is for further penetration of total rides? And then second question, would you expect this kind of divergence between gross bookings growth and rides volume growth to extend into the second half? Or will the gap close a bit as we get through the second half? Thank you.
David Risher: We will tag-team that one again. There is a lot of runway, or headroom, in high-value modes. This is an area where Lyft, Inc. may have underinvested for some period of time and now has made up for lost time. We are focusing on improving the quality of the cars and the types of drivers. Some drivers who drive for Black and high-value modes—Black, XL, even XXL, a new product for big families—are more professional. TBR also operates in the very high-end chauffeur service. Lots of growth there and lots of runway ahead.
Over the last couple of quarters, you have heard us talk about the acceleration, and we have big ambitions because there is a lot of demand to fill with a high-quality product.
Erin Brewer: I will take the one on gross bookings and rides growth rates. In the first quarter, you are seeing a continuation of a very active shift toward higher-value modes. We have been talking about that for a few quarters. The first quarter growth there is up over 35% year over year. Adding in the FreeNow business, which carries a higher average gross bookings per ride, is helpful. Correspondingly, we continue to diversify the things that add to our gross bookings where there may not be a ride attached—things like ads and luxury, for example. Those dynamics are driving that divergence. For the second quarter, I do expect the delta between gross bookings growth and rides growth to narrow somewhat.
The significant seasonal expansion of the bike business is one of the main underlying drivers. So it will narrow somewhat from Q1 to Q2.
John Ryan Blackledge: Thank you. Thanks. Okay.
Erin Rheaume: No. We really are going to take a question from Mike at—
Michael Morton: Awesome. Thank you. It was nice knowing that it was coming. Two, if I can. Time to prepare. Yeah. I had time to prepare, but it was going to be the same questions anyway. Can we talk about pricing in the U.S. market? All inter-quarter, we get questions from clients about what third-party data shows for industry pricing, kind of a head-scratching ramp. And then when we see this reported number, I know that there is some FreeNow aspect on it. But can we simplify it? Point-blank, what year-over-year pricing is for a Lyft standard ride? I know there is a premiumization aspect, but just to level set that.
And then another question, I would love to hear your feeling about your ads business, maybe some updates on the run rate there and if anything has changed on your outlook for the future, if you are more optimistic or anything along those lines would be great. Thank you so much.
Erin Brewer: David, do you want to start with the ads business, and I will talk about pricing?
David Risher: Erin and I are chuckling here in the background. That sounds good. On ads, we have talked about ads for a while and have been super pleased with the run rate, the exit rate from last year. Big picture, there is a lot of opportunity. Advertisers are always looking for new ways to connect with customers. In an increasingly virtualized world where people spend more time on their phones, the big open question is not how to do more virtual digital ads; that is fairly well solved. What is really interesting is how to connect that to the physical world.
If you look at some of the campaigns we have done, we talked about Sephora last time, and Charles Schwab this time in the prepared remarks. Actually, just today, we are doing something with McDonald’s. You start to see interesting trends where people are literally changing behavior as a result of being in cars when they are seeing ads in real time. Also bikes: here in San Francisco, Gemini is all over the bike system; same sort of deal. Citi across all of New York City. A lot of opportunities there. When you look at the audience we have, 50 million people plus, the question is how can you take that audience and extend that?
We are doing something called audience extension, allowing us to extend beyond our four walls to off-platform through Trade Desk and other ad brokers. There is a lot of opportunity here. The person who runs our ad group, Susie Ryder, joined us from YouTube a couple of years ago, where she ran their ad business for many years and grew it to something quite big. We have the same conviction here. It may not be quite the same size as YouTube, that would be impressive, but we have a lot of headroom ahead.
Erin Brewer: Mike, on pricing, I appreciate the simplicity of your question, and I may somewhat frustrate you because, as you know in following our business, it tends to be fairly complex. There are changes year over year as you think about the mix of our business in top markets or certain geographies, which carry higher average pricing. We have been growing significantly in low-scale markets, so you have some mix effect, which makes it not straightforward to give you a single answer. I would offer a couple of perspectives. Over a number of years, this industry generally does see some amount of price increases when you think about longer-term trends.
Over the near term, sequentially from Q4 to Q1, pricing was pretty stable overall. A couple of questions ago, I tried to highlight that our overall gross bookings mix has evolved over time. Significant growth of higher-value modes, the addition of FreeNow, and things like ads or our chauffeuring business, which contribute to gross bookings but do not carry the same rides component. Those are some of the areas. Sequentially, overall pricing was pretty stable from Q4 to Q1. Hopefully, that is helpful color.
Michael Morton: Thank you.
Erin Rheaume: Up next, we have Ken with Wells Fargo.
Ken Gawrelski: Thank you. Can you hear me okay?
Erin Rheaume: Yes.
Ken Gawrelski: Thank you. Can you help me strategically understand the recent acquisitions? Some are geographic diversification, but others are not strictly in the rideshare business. How do you see them all come together strategically? What are the key points of synergy? Beyond geographic expansion, why are those assets better together?
David Risher: Let me take a stab at that, with a tiny bit of history. We were not a particularly acquisitive company for a period of time. The reason is we were getting our base business going strong. Last year, we made our first significant acquisition, with FreeNow. It was definitely a rideshare acquisition. It is taxi-focused at its core rather than PHV in Europe, but it expanded our footprint, which is nice for geographic diversity, into nine new countries. It allowed us, strategically, to build upon the government relations that a company in the taxi business has had to have for a long time, which will be important for AVs.
I would look at much of our acquisition activity in Europe as important for geographic diversity and for an AV future. You can see that with GET as well. It just closed this week. GET is a well-respected, largely B2B taxi service in London. Between that and the FreeNow presence in London, we are on something north of 70%, maybe 80%, of the taxis that have apps in their cars now having a Lyft, Inc. app in the car. That allows us access to a very important market—Europe’s biggest rideshare market, arguably one of the most important in the world.
Our activity in London has a short-term issue of wanting to build volume because that is part of what we bring to the AV category, as well as government relations. GET directly works with governments, and we have good relations through FreeNow. TBR is the other acquisition we announced recently. Also in the rideshare space, but quite different. That is really a chauffeur space—very high end. We talk about this as “up and out.” Out is the overseas piece, and up is strengthening our position in higher-end offerings. It is wonderful to have a very top-tier brand. You may know TBR as often servicing non-deal roadshows in the United States and abroad, 120 countries.
Once you have a service level marked at a 10 out of 10, that brings your whole company up. Many companies are now making good money in the high end. That touches on the significant ones. Thank you.
Erin Rheaume: Next question is going to be from Ross with Barclays.
Ross Sandler: Great. This is a good follow-on from that last answer. Can we get an update on whether the FreeNow kind of like-for-like is growing? I think it was flattish when you made that acquisition. I know we have not anniversaried it, but is the business growing? And are there any early proof points of U.S. Lyft, Inc. enthusiasts going to Europe and adding to the FreeNow business that way? Any color there? Thank you.
Erin Brewer: I will start with the performance, then David can talk about what we have coming up on the rider side. To answer your question directly, yes, the business is growing. When we bought the business, it had about a $1 billion overall annual run rate. We talked about that being on track as we closed last year, and we anticipate growth as we look into 2026.
David Risher: On the second part, we have just begun, but I can give you the arc of the project. Today, if you are a Lyft, Inc. user and you open up the FreeNow app in London, you will get a notification—if you open up the Lyft, Inc. app, you will get a notification—that our partner FreeNow is delivering rides in Europe. It is a fairly basic integration like that. We do some other small things with Chase and others.
Our vision, and we can say now really by 2027, is that anywhere as a rider on the Lyft, Inc. app—the Lyft, Inc. ecosystem—anywhere you are that we do business through FreeNow or others, you will be able to open that app and get a ride anywhere you want. It will be a much more tightly integrated experience happening in 2027. That has always been the plan: step-by-step integration such that by 2027, we debut that. Once that happens, you would expect the growth of the business to be more significant as a result.
Ross Sandler: Okay. Great.
Erin Rheaume: Next question is Chad with Oppenheimer.
Analyst: Could you talk about the margin benefits of some of these higher-value rides as they become the larger share of overall rides, as well as taxi expansion into more cities? Thank you.
Erin Brewer: I will take the margin profile. David, do you want to talk about taxi expansion overall? As you think about the higher-value mode mix of rides, all the way up to and including TBR and chauffeuring that David described, they bring a higher overall margin profile to the business. The mix not only helps financially, but also gives riders greater choice. When those are offered, we are seeing behavior where trade-up happens. It satisfies rider needs and desires at that point in time and increases the mix that brings in a healthier margin profile.
David Risher: I will give a shout out to Lyft Black in particular and then zoom back out. It is our highest-rated ride mode. It is a great product. It has been a little under-marketed over the years. We have improved the quality and you are starting to see a little more uptake. If you are on the call and you have not taken it, I highly recommend it—and go ahead and pay with your United miles. On taxis, one of our strategic priorities this year is expanding the platform. You have seen experiments at small scale in St. Louis and much more significant scale in LA. There will be other cities beyond that.
Taxis carry their own insurance, so that has a slightly different financial profile than typical rideshare. In Europe, taxis are a whole different thing. It is a much higher-end, very predictable product in many countries and has higher bookings per ride, typically because of regulation, and it is seen as a bit more of a luxury product than in the U.S. Across our whole platform, I feel really good about building a strong foundation that ultimately will embrace AVs as well, and that is next to come.
Erin Rheaume: Great. Next question will be Justin with KeyBanc.
Analyst: Great. Thank you. This is Miles on for Justin. I wanted to ask about loyalty. I was wondering if you could provide an update—it is early—on Lyft cash rewards. And a broader view: you mentioned wanting to do more loyalty. How does that fit with the strategy along with Lyft Pink and your existing offer there? And continuing on international expansion, you have been active in M&A in new geographies. Do you think this puts you in a position to start organically entering new markets now that you have more of a portfolio in places like Europe to bolster that expansion? Thank you.
David Risher: Sure, Miles. I will start, and we will see if Erin has anything to add. Loyalty: we have made real inroads. This is an area where we have been a little silent because we have been getting things together behind the scenes. Last August, we really started to lean into loyalty for our business riders. We had not had a good business product for some period of time when it came to loyalty. This was causing us pain in the marketplace. We said, let us come out with the best program there is for rideshare, full stop. Here it is: it is free, which is very important, and it is 6% back up to 8% back depending on your mode.
You also get points multipliers for United, Hilton, and Alaska. I will say the free part one more time because it is important. We have a competitor out there that sells something else, and we internally sometimes talk about it as selling a time bomb. You sell something for free, and then a couple of months later, it starts to charge you. We do not have that. We have a free product that gives you immediate rewards back for our managed Business Rewards program. We have learned a ton. It has been quite successful. It has grown significantly and has interesting characteristics about how many more rides people take once they sign up.
You also mentioned Lyft cash rewards, something we are experimenting with on the consumer side. Super cool. Still relatively small, definitely in experimentation mode. You can see we are putting energy in this area. It is a bit of a “stay tuned,” but we have good stuff to talk about in the future.
Erin Brewer: Maybe I can add some stats on Business Rewards. First-time rides on rewards-eligible business profiles grew 59% year over year, and those rewards-eligible riders are taking 25% more Lyft, Inc. rides per month. We are super excited about what we are seeing in these early phases. That tells us we have a great product, people are finding value in it, and they are taking more airport trips. A little bit more on the stats.
David Risher: Then I think you had a question about organic expansion in new markets internationally. I think that is probably one we are not going to talk too much about.
Erin Rheaume: Okay. Next question. We have Shweta with Wolfe Research. Thank you for taking my question.
Analyst: Two quick ones, please. First, I am sorry if I missed it, but did you quantify the impact of the fuel program on your P&L? If not, could we get a sense of the impact? And second, how should we think about the partnership rides growth? The 27% data point is great. Any sense on how that cohort of 27% of the rides growth compares versus the non-partnership rides? Thank you.
Erin Brewer: I will take the fuel question and then turn it over to David. We are really proud of the way that we engage with our drivers and the continued preference they demonstrate for our platform. We are proud to have been first out there with a relief program. It says a lot about who we are as a company. We leaned in with our partners. We have a great driver rewards program overall, offering all kinds of benefits. Leaning in to provide relief here, drivers can get almost a dollar in savings across all the programs. That is really co-funded overall, if you think about how those benefits accrue.
While all of this is meaningful and material to drivers, it is not material to our overall financial profile, nor do we expect it to be in the second quarter.
David Risher: On the partnership side, maybe just a little color. Different partners provide different types of benefits to us as a business. On average, partners tend to be strong at bringing higher-bookings rides. United, Alaska, Hilton, Chase—you can imagine why. Sometimes it is quite significant. It is a set of riders who are taking typically higher-priced rides, which tend to have higher margins, and people tend to be loyal to those programs, taking rides regularly. Then you have more of a volume strategy with DoorDash—it is the volume anchor because it has such a large program, and people eat quite a lot. Overall, as a portfolio, it is a healthy part of our rider base.
Different partners have different characteristics, but on average, quite nice on the bookings and frequency side.
Analyst: Okay. Thank you both.
David Risher: Sure.
Erin Rheaume: And the last question is going to be with Rohit from Roth Capital.
Erin Brewer: Did we lose you?
Analyst: Okay. I had two questions, one on pricing and one on AVs. You talk about this “check Lyft” messaging campaign. Are you seeing any measurable changes in rider behavior since you launched it—perhaps improved conversion from price-sensitive shoppers? If it becomes normalized consumer behavior, is there a scenario that could lead to more structural pressure on industry pricing over time, or perhaps there is more pricing power that both companies have? That is the first question. Second, on AVs, it feels like the three cities closer to launch are Nashville, Hamburg, and London.
Can you level set how you are operating or offering your services—be it the orchestration layer, fleet operations, depot management—perhaps talk to your capabilities across those three places?
David Risher: I will take this. These are big last questions, but let us do it. On pricing, you asked about results and implications on the future. The results right now are promising, but it is still very early. You will see us turn up the volume there, which is a good indication that we like what we see so far. This is already a very competitive marketplace. I do not think either company has a lot of room on the price side because if we did, we would have done it. We try to offer the best price we possibly can—3 million times a day—as Erin says, reliable competitive pricing is our strategy. That is not something I worry much about.
What is true is customers who check both apps tend to do better. There is a study out there that says in New York, they would save $170. It is true. The more people who check both, the healthier the marketplace gets. It keeps us both on our toes. Our position is a nice one to be in because we offer a very competitive product: fast ETAs, in many cases faster than the competition; good pricing, in many cases less expensive, although clearly not always. If more people check us out, we can impress them with the quality of our service. I could talk about driver cancellation, pickup times, and so forth—nice reinforcement once people get into our place.
Maybe before I dive into AVs, something interesting to point out. This campaign has been live in San Francisco and New York. These are two cities that also have a heavy mix of premium modes. The thing is just, “Hey, check,” as opposed to doing something out of habit.
David Risher: On AVs, you mentioned Nashville, London, and Hamburg. Quick update on each. Nashville: quite exciting. Waymo is on the road right now. Later this summer, we start to take over operations of that. Then we open our new 80 thousand square foot center. Then you will be able to order a Waymo on the Lyft, Inc. app in our hybrid marketplace there, which we are very excited about. It is going great. We have been in a nice position for the last ten years. We have about 50 thousand cars we have managed through our Flexdrive subsidiary. Those 50 thousand cars have driven billions of miles. That has delivered to us enormous expertise on maintenance and availability.
We believe we are industry-leading on operations. With Waymo—arguably the world’s leader in AV tech—married with what we believe is the world’s leader in fleet operations and efficient, low-cost fleet operations, we are very excited. That is where Nashville is, and over the summer, you will see that grow quickly. London: a different situation. Our partner is Baidu—arguably the second most advanced technology out there, certainly in terms of miles driven. I was in China a couple of weeks ago meeting with them. Incredible company. Their RT6 cars have just rolled off the docks; the same ones I was riding in Beijing are now in London. They are beginning mapping. It will take a while.
When you add a new technology to city streets, there are regulators to work with. We are spending a lot of energy on issues like data privacy. Very important, and I am proud of our team. They have made incredible progress. Then there is the physics of the thing. In London, a lot of small streets are two-way—how do you navigate a two-way street with AVs where you cannot signal “you go first”? These things take time, but we have an ODD that is beginning to get mapped out. We are beginning there—earlier in the process, but very much on track. Hamburg: that is different.
We have established a partnership at the city level that we are going to be the AV provider there. We have not given too much more detail, and I will not today, but it gives you a sense that things are going to roll out in the U.S. and Europe in a number of different ways. I think I am getting the wrap-up. Thank you, Rohit, and thank you all. We really appreciate your joining the call today. Looking ahead, we are super excited about another strong year as we continue to track towards our 2027 targets. Thanks for coming along on the ride with us. Take care, and we will see you next time.
