Lyft is about one-eighth the size of Uber
In short, Lyft expects to double its revenue between this year and 2016 and become profitable by next year - even though its revenue projections are about one-eighth the size of Uber's rumored projections for this year.
TechCrunch's Ryan Lawler got the Lyft numbers from "a forecast shared with potential investors."
In 2015, according to Lawler, Lyft is looking at "nearly $1.2 billion in gross revenues, of which its take will be around $300 million net." According to the internal projections, the company stands to make more than $250 million this year from its original Lyft service, and "nearly $40 million" from Lyft Line, Lyft's ride-sharing service. Both Lyft and Lyft Line are expected to grow.
In 2016, Lyft says its revenues will "more than double," with $2.7 billion in gross sales resulting in $700 million in net revenue.
Lyft expects $170 million gross profit forecast for 2015, and $400 million in 2016, but that does not account for the costs of acquiring new drivers and customers. This year, Lyft expects to spend $200 million on customer and driver acquisition - $150 million on customer acquisition, and $50 million on driver acquisition.
"Taking those numbers into account, there's a delta of around $30 million between its gross profit and acquisition costs this year," Techcrunch reports. "In 2016, the financial picture gets a little better: While gross profit is expected to grow to around $400 million, its spend on driver and passenger acquisition is forecast to increase only slightly, to around $250 million."
Comparatively, Uber's gross revenue is expected to hit $10 billion by the end of this year. Since Uber keeps 20 percent of gross revenue and the rest goes to drivers, the company would be likely to get $2 billion in net revenue, based on these numbers.
In December 2013 Uber generated about $11.7 million in Washington, DC, or an annual run rate of ~$141 million. It generated $26 million in New York City, or an annual run rate of $312 million. In Chicago, Uber generated $12.7 million for a run rate of $152.4 million. In San Francisco, Uber generated $17.7 million, a run rate of $212.4 million.
These numbers are from more than a year ago, so presumably Uber has grown even more in its most mature markets since then.
Another comparison: At the beginning of 2015, Lyft was doing 2.5 million rides a month. By the end of the year, the company says it expects it will be doing almost 13 million rides a month, or about 90 million rides in 2015. Lyft says in 2016 it plans to do 205 million rides.
Uber was doing more than 100,000 trips per week (400,000 per month) in each of its largest cities as of December 2013, and has presumably grown since then.
We've reached out to Lyft and will update this story if we hear back.