Get The Information you need today and save.

Save $100 on your first year of The Information.

Exclusive

Lyft’s 2016 Financials Show Business Gains

Jan. 12, 2017 1:26 PM PST ·

Lyft, the ride-hailing app that’s a distant No. 2 to Uber in the U.S., lost about $600 million last year after generating $700 million in revenue, according to data reviewed by The Information and people with knowledge of the company’s finances.

Despite the size of the loss, the 2016 results were a big improvement on the previous year when Lyft lost twice as much as the revenue it brought in, the data show. The latter half of 2016, in particular, was much stronger than the second quarter of the year, which was Lyft’s worst-ever quarter in terms of red ink, according to the data.

No subscription? You’re missing out.

Join the high-powered community of tech and business leaders who rely on The Information’s original news and in-depth reporting.

Subscribe to read the remaining 1079 words of this article.

Already a subscriber? Log in here

What’s included in a subscription?

Read The Information’s original, in-depth reporting and analysis

Receive as-they-happen articles via email

Talk with award-winning reporters in subscriber-only conference calls

Join the conversation on our subscriber-only Slack channel

Attend intimate, high-powered events with leaders in tech and business

Lyft, which has raised $2 billion and a year ago had a $5.5 billion post-money valuation on paper, still has more than $1 billion in cash on hand. It’s planning to be profitable regardless of what self-driving cars might do for the business someday by taking out the cost of the human driver. (Autonomous vehicles potentially would introduce new costs such as needing to purchase the vehicles, actively monitor them and maintain them.) A Lyft executive told The Information last fall that a majority of rides in five years on Lyft will be from autonomous vehicles. That time frame is far from assured.