In the fourth quarter of 2021, Lyft reduced its net loss to $258.6 million. A year earlier, it had come out at $458.2 million. However, the Bloomberg consensus was expecting a lower loss of around $171 million.
As for adjusted EBITDA, a key criterion for the group, it came out positive at 74.7 million dollars, against -150 million dollars a year earlier, but proves to be a bit short since the consensus was counting on 75.7 million.
For its part, turnover amounted to 969.9 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2021, a jump of 70% over one year. It exceeds this time the consensus which aimed at 940.4 million dollars.
Over the whole of 2021, Lyft thus recorded a turnover of 3.2 billion dollars (+36% over one year), a positive adjusted Ebitda of 92.9 million dollars (against -755 $.2 million in 2020) and a net loss of $1 billion (compared to a loss of $1.8 billion in 2020).
On the outlook side, Lyft expects the Omicron variant to be most noticeable in the first quarter of 2022. The group expects revenue of between $800 million and $850 million, significantly disappointing analysts’ average forecasts ( $984 million).
“Despite the short-term headwinds related to the Omicron variant, we remain optimistic for 2022,” said Elaine Paul, Lyft’s chief financial officer.
Reacting to these results, JPMorgan reduced its price target from $67 to $59 on Lyft stock. He reiterated his Overweight recommendation, however. While the Omicron variant weighed on the recovery at the start of the year, he sees early signs that demand is picking up. For 2022, the broker anticipates a 28% increase in turnover of around 4.1 billion dollars.