Millennials are reviving Uber during the darkest time in company history
Over the last six months, the ride-hailing company has been the subject of scandal after scandal, ultimately firing more than 20 employees after an investigation into the company's reportedly toxic culture. Most recently, CEO Travis Kalanick resigned after investors essentially forced the co-founder out of his leadership position.
It's difficult to think of a company that has had a worse 2017 than Uber, as the world's most valuable startup has been in a near-constant state of damage control and crisis management since the #DeleteUber movement in January.
However, despite the criticism of the company, more millennials are using Uber now than ever before, as the company gains millennial customers at a faster rate than any other in the US.
In the first six months of 2017, Uber gained a larger percentage of millennial customers since the first half of 2016 than any other major brand, according to data YouGov BrandIndex released on Wednesday.
Roughly 26% of all millennials surveyed reported they had used the service in the last 60 days, an increase of 8 percentage points from the same period last year.
For comparison, rival Lyft increased its number of active millennial customers by 6 percentage points, with 12.3% of millennials surveyed reporting that they recently used the app.
Uber certainly isn't in the clear yet, as the company prepares to take on everything from new leadership to the rise of autonomous cars. However, with more millennials using Uber than ever before, despite with the long string of scandals, it's clear that it's much too early to count the controversial company out just yet.