Lyft (LYFT) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer – David Risher
• Chief Financial Officer – Michael Brous
• Investor Relations – Francesca Ford-Filandro

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TAKEAWAYS

• Gross Bookings — $5.6 billion, representing 17% growth driven by record rides and active rider levels.
• Revenue — $1.8 billion, a 8% increase which included a $69.1 million reduction related to legal, tax, and regulatory settlements.
• Adjusted EBITDA — $203.9 million, growing 47% and reaching a 3.6% margin as a percentage of gross bookings.
• GAAP Net Loss — $9.7 million, a 121% decrease from the $46.1 million net income in the prior year period.
• Active Riders — 31.6 million, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth with a 10% increase.
• Rides — 273.5 million, up 10% with acceleration in North American rideshare activity.
• Free Cash Flow — $294.7 million, contributing to a trailing 12-month total of $1.1 billion.
• Cash and Cash Equivalents — $1.3 billion as of Sept. 30, 2026, part of a total liquidity position that includes short-term and restricted investments.
• Q4 2026 Gross Bookings Guidance — $5.74 billion to $5.94 billion, reflecting expected growth of 13% to 17%.
• Q4 2026 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance — $188 million to $213 million, with a margin target between 3.3% and 3.6% of gross bookings.
• Share Repurchases — $50 million during the quarter, with the company maintaining its full-year expectation of $500 million in repurchases.
• Canada Rides — More than doubled year over year, with Toronto becoming one of the largest markets in the company’s portfolio.
• Driver Hours — Reached an all-time high, contributing to faster estimated times of arrival compared to the previous year.
• Cost of Revenue — $871.4 million, declining from $927.2 million as the company focused on reducing insurance-related expenses.
• Sales and Marketing Expense — $382 million, increasing from $243.3 million in the prior year due to investments in rider incentives.
• General and Administrative Expense — $344.7 million, up from $250.6 million primarily due to the $117.9 million impact from legal and regulatory settlements.
• Fuel Rebate Program — $20 million saved for drivers through co-funded partnerships with other companies.

SUMMARY

Lyft, Inc. (LYFT -7.79%) reported its third quarter results, emphasizing a transformation into a global mobility platform capable of supporting autonomous vehicles. Management described a three-part “up, out, and forward” strategy focused on expanding premium services, increasing international reach, and commercializing autonomous vehicle technology. The company reported record levels for gross bookings and active riders while achieving its fifth consecutive quarter of generating more than $1 billion in trailing 12-month free cash flow. Chief Executive Officer David Risher stated that the company is on track to reach over 1 billion rides globally for the full year 2026.

• Risher noted that the launch of the Lyft Go membership program has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of linked accounts between the company and DoorDash.
• Brous reported that the company completed its Oct. 1 insurance renewal with “very modest growth impact quarter-on-quarter” and expected costs to remain below the industry average.
• Management stated that the company set multiple all-time records during Halloween week, including ride requests per minute and total daily rides.
• The company is expanding its autonomous vehicle operations in Nashville, where it operates an 80,000-square-foot depot and expects to significantly grow the fleet size by the end of the year.
• International operations in Europe saw year-over-year growth in gross bookings, active riders, and rides, with management noting that a new roaming feature now allows U.S. customers to hail rides through the app in Europe.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Alcove: Lyft’s premium chauffeuring brand dedicated to corporate travel programs.
• Lyft Go: A membership program offering credits and benefits across the Lyft and DoorDash platforms.
• Adjusted EBITDA: A non-GAAP financial measure that excludes certain costs such as interest, taxes, depreciation, and stock-based compensation.
• ODD (Operational Design Domain): The specific conditions under which an autonomous vehicle system is designed to operate safely.
• RT6: A custom-built, sixth-generation robotaxi produced by Baidu.
• Lyft Urban Solutions: The company’s business segment focused on e-bikes and scooters.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Francesca Ford-Filandro: Good afternoon, and welcome to Lyft’s Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. On the call today, we have our CEO, David Risher; and our CFO, Michael Brous. Our full prepared remarks are available on the IR website and Lyft blog, and we will use this time to answer your questions. We’ll make forward-looking statements on today’s call, including statements relating to our business strategy and performance, partnerships, future financial and operating results, trends in our marketplace and guidance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied during this call.

These factors and risks are described in our earnings materials and in our recent SEC filings. All of the forward-looking statements that we make on today’s call are based on our beliefs as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Additionally, today, we are going to discuss customers. For rideshare, there are generally 2 customers in every car. The driver is Lyft’s customer and the rider is the driver’s customer. We care about both. Our discussion today will also include non-GAAP financial measures which are not a substitute for GAAP results.

Reconciliations of our historical GAAP to non-GAAP results can be found in our earnings materials, which are available on our IR website. And with that, I’ll pass the call to David.

John Risher: Thank you, Frankie. Hey, good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. All right. Listen up, I know you’re multitasking, so cut it down. I want to start the call by reminding us how far we’ve come over the last couple of years. Back in 2023, people, yourselves included, had some questions. We completed only 700 million rides, bookings have grown only by about 14% versus the prior year. We’re losing share, and we burned about $248 million in cash, ouch. Okay, so today, Lyft is a very different company, thanks to one simple idea, customer obsession drives profitable growth. Our quarterly results tell the story. In Q3, bookings were up 17% year-on-year.

We have accelerated rides, up 10% year-on-year with acceleration both in the U.S. and Canada. We had 31.6 million active riders, our eighth consecutive quarter

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