Lyft shares dive nearly 10% on underwhelming bookings guide, Q4 profit miss

Investing.com -- LYFT Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT) shares sank nearly 10% following the Wednesday market open after the ride-hailing company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed Wall Street expectations and issued an underwhelming Q1 bookings outlook.

The company posted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.15, falling short of analysts' average estimate of $0.21. Revenue for the quarter was $1.6 billion, slightly above expectations of $1.56 billion.

Lyft is navigating a competitive ride-hailing market, where pricing strategies and driver incentives remain key factors in revenue and profitability trends.

“Our biggest competition is inertia,” CEO David Risher said in a statement, as the company navigates a competitive ride-hailing market where pricing strategies and driver incentives remain key to growth and profitability.

Lyft said it expects rides growth in the mid-teens percentage year over year, for the first quarter of 2025.

The company forecast gross bookings growth of 10% to 14% year over year in Q1, reaching approximately $4.05 billion to $4.20 billion, which is below its 3-year mid-
teens target.

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $90 million and $95 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 2.2% to 2.3% as a percentage of gross bookings.

Shares of rival Uber (NYSE:UBER) were also down more than 1%.

In their post-earnings comments, RBC Capital Markets analysts described the Lyft's Q4 as "somewhat challenging."

"Positively, the company is seeing outsized rides growth starting out the year and is competing well in terms of service levels&conversions on an apples-to-apples basis with UBER which is core to our thesis," analysts said.

"Less positively, the company is seeing more aggressive pricing from UBER than expected which is weighing on the Q1 bookings outlook," they added.

In turn, RBC trimmed its LYFT price target to $21 from $24, but maintained an Outperform rating.

Similarly, BMO Capital Markets maintained its Market Perform on the stock while lowering the target price to $15 from $18 on soft Q1 bookings outlook, continued price erosion, and the termination of Delta partnership, which affects gross bookings.

"A bright spot in 4Q24A is that autonomous vehicles are proving incremental to overall rideshare," BMO's team added.

Pratyush Thakur contributed to this report.

This article first appeared in Investing.com