Lyft lifts off

According to eMarketer’s latest “US Sharing Economy 2020” forecasting report, Lyft is poised for growth.

Article by Blake Droesch | eMarketer

In a marketplace crowded with competition, ride-hailing pioneer Uber still dominates the US transportation-sharing economy. But as the first mover’s growth slows, its main competitor Lyft will increasingly claim market share.

We estimate that 74.5% of transportation-sharing users in the US will use Uber in 2020, compared with 54.0% who will use Lyft. Over the next three years, Lyft will continue to grow its share of transportation-sharing users at faster rates than those of Uber, according to our latest forecasting report, “US Sharing Economy 2020.”

By the end of 2023, Lyft’s share of transportation-sharing users will reach 59.0%, less than 13 percentage points behind Uber.

Both Uber and Lyft continue to benefit from being first to market in the ride-sharing industry. But Uber has a considerably larger number of users, giving it less room to grow. We expect Uber will have 63.3 million US users in 2020, growing 9.7% over 2019. Lyft will have 45.9 million US users, up 23.7%.

In the past two years, Uber and Lyft dealt with similar challenges. Both companies have been criticized for not having a clear path to profitability. Both had less-than-stellar debuts on Wall Street. (Lyft went public in March 2019, with Uber following in May.) And both faced negative publicity around lawsuits from riders alleging they were sexually assaulted by drivers.

Uber and Lyft have continued to add users despite these roadblocks and have made transportation-sharing the key driver of the US sharing economy.

Transportation-sharing is also benefiting from secular growth toward “Transportation as a Service” (TaaS), as some users are moving away from car ownership. We expect the US transportation-sharing economy will grow to 85.0 million users in 2020, up 10.4% year over year.