Lyft results underscore importance to Uber of life beyond ride-hailing
Lfyt posts huge losses in post-IPO earnings as Uber prepares for New York listing on Friday
New York — Investor disappointment at Lyft’s growth outlook underscores the pressure for rival Uber Technologies to show potential backers of its initial public offering (IPO) that it can expand services such as food delivery even as its core ride-hailing slows down. Lyft posted its first results as a public company, one of the last data points for investors ahead of Uber’s IPO this week. Lyft, a smaller company, said growth was slowing and losses would shrink after 2019. Uber, though, has bet on a broader range of services and markets than Lyft, comparing itself recently to Amazon.com, which did not turn a profit until several years after its IPO. “If you believe in the Amazon model, you basically believe that Wall Street will fund these companies indefinitely with almost zero cost of capital, as long as they post these extraordinary growth rates,” said Renny Ponvert, CEO of independent research firm Management CV. “If that dynamic changes things could get rough really quickly.” U...
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