Twice as many Americans (and some Canadians) hailed a ride from Lyft last year than in 2016, building brand awareness as rival ride-sharing company Uber struggled with a variety of public-relations and business challenges, Forbes reported January 16, 2018.
Lyft reported that it completed 375.5 million rides in the US and Toronto, Canada in 2017, up from 162.6 million rides in 2016. Toronto, Lyft’s first international market, was added last year.
Lyft’s customer base rose from 12 million to 23 million between 2016 and 2017, and the number of Lyft drivers doubled to 1.4 million. The company now has operations covering 95 percent of the US population, officials said.
“I’ve been at Lyft five years, and every year is bigger and more exciting than the last, but 2017 really felt different,” said Woody Hartman, Lyft’s vice president of operations. “It felt like the year in which the public really got to know us for our mission and our values and that led us to bring a bunch of new passengers and drivers onto the platform and achieve the kind of growth that we did.”
Meanwhile, market leader Uber – which has not yet released its 2017 US data – was beset by problems that included a consumer boycott and the loss of its CEO.
Still, Uber continues to dominate the global rise-sharing market, completing 4 billion rides worldwide in 2017.