UPDATED 20:54 EDT / DECEMBER 12 2018

EMERGING TECH

Lyft market share rises as it heads toward an IPO duel with rival Uber

U.S. ride-hailing minnow Lyft Inc. continues to increase its market share against rival Uber Technologies Inc. as both companies prepare to go public in the first half of next year.

According to data from research firm Second Measure, Uber held a 69.2 percent share of the U.S. ride-hailing market in October, down 3 percent from the same month in 2017, while Lyft held a share of 28.4 percent, up 3 percent.

Smaller players such as Juno USA LP, Gett Inc. and Via Transportation Inc. accounted for the remaining 2.4 percent.

The market share was derived from anonymous credit and debit card booking data rather than hard data from either company. Lyft had previously claimed to have a market share of 35 percent in May, but as was noted at the time, U.S. ride-hailing users often use both Lyft and Uber, making it difficult to ascertain market share.

By another measure, app downloads, Lyft is also surging in popularity. App installation data from Sensor Tower reported by Business Insider shows that downloads for Lyft have nearly caught up with Uber, “narrowing the gap between the two to less than a million.”

The data shows that for first-time installs for U.S. phones from either the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, Lyft is now within 80 percent of Uber, although for both companies, new app installs are slowing.

The increase in market share for Lyft is a positive going into its IPO, but Uber is a global business and the market will not be looking at U.S. market share alone when considering Uber’s float.

Uber confidentially filed to go public Dec. 7 with reports suggesting that it may float on a valuation as high as $120 billion, up from previous valuations of between $48 billion and $72 billion depending on the venture capital round.

Lyft filed a day earlier, and though no solid figure has been given for its potential market valuation at its IPO, the company last raised money at a valuation of $15.1 billion in July.

Both companies will provide a test of how much tolerance investors have for highly unprofitable companies. Uber, in its most recently reported quarter, booked a record loss of $1.07 billion.

Photo: Pkg203/Wikimedia Commons

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