Lyft just gave us the first look inside its financials — and they show widening losses as the company continues to grow
- Lyft made its IPO documents available to the public for the first time on Friday.
- The ride-hailing company's S-1 show growing losses as the company scales.
Lyft has finally publicly filed its long-awaited IPO documents.
The S-1, unveiled for the first time on Friday, is our first look under-the-hood, so to speak, at the company's financials. Unlike it's much larger competitor, Uber, Lyft has not publicly released much about its financial situation.
Lyft made $2.1 billion in revenue in 2018, the document shows, by providing more than 1 billion rides. However, that translated to $911.3 million loss in 2018 — its biggest annual loss in the past three years. For 2016 and 2017, its losses were $682.8 million and $688.3 million.
At the same time, revenues have grown at an even faster pace. Lyft's 2018 revenue of $2.1 billion is more than six times its $343.3 million from 2016 and double 2017's $1.06 billion.
"Our expenses will likely increase in the future as we develop and launch new offerings and platform features, expand in existing and new markets, increase our sales and marketing efforts and continue to invest in our platform," the company said in its filing.
Revenue as a percentage of bookings, a key factor for all ride-hailing companies, is also steadily growing. In its most recent quarter, that percentage had topped 28%. The company says this measure is key because helps to gauge driver utilization on the platform, and "earn increased service fees and commissions from drivers."
Lyft makes about $36 per rider, it said — that's up from nearly half in 2016 as the company finds ways to make each and every ride on its platform more profitable.
Here's its most recent financial data, from the filing:
More from Lyft's IPO filing:
- Lyft kicks off 2019 unicorn IPO spree with public S-1
- Lyft and Uber will let some drivers get stock at the IPO price
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: We stayed overnight in a Boeing 747 converted hotel — here's what it was like inside