Lyft says it will turn EBITDA profitable by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021

Lyft Inc (NASDAQ: LYFT) published a better than expected earnings report for the fiscal third quarter on Tuesday that resulted in a 6% gain in its stock in after-hours trading.

Including the price action, Lyft is now exchanging hands at £28.67 per share that translates to an over 10% year to date in the stock market. Shares of the company, however, have picked considerably from the low of £12.09 per share in March when COVID-19 restrictions were at their peak.

Lyft’s Q3 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

According to FactSet, experts had forecast the company to print £365.15 million of revenue in the third quarter. For loss per share, they had estimated 70.06 pence. In its report on Tuesday, Lyft topped both estimates posting a higher £376.45 million in revenue and 67.05 pence of adjusted per-share loss in Q3.

At £346.55 million, the ride-hailing company’s net loss in the recent quarter was almost the same as £348.81 million in the same quarter last year. In the prior quarter (Q2), Lyft had revealed £335.38 million of net loss, as per the report published in August.

Lyft also said in its financial report on Tuesday that it had 12.5 million active riders in the fiscal third quarter that represents a 44% growth as compared to Q2. The San Francisco-based company recorded £30.05 of revenue per active rider.

On average, analysts had predicted 11.9 million active riders for Lyft in the recent quarter. On a year over year basis, active riders were still down roughly 44% in Q3. Lyft announced to have secured immunity from California’s employment reform earlier this week.

CFO Brian Roberts’ comments on Tuesday

Lyft now expects to turn EBITDA profitable by Q4 of fiscal 2021. CFO Brian Roberts commented on the financial results on Tuesday and said:

“Our Q3 revenue grew by 47% quarter over quarter driven by a meaningful recovery in Active Riders, and we successfully limited our adjusted EBITDA loss, outperforming our most recent outlook by $25 million. These results reflect the ongoing recovery as well as our progress towards reducing costs and improving our underlying unit economics.”

Lyft debuted on Nasdaq in March 2019 at a per-share price of £59 but concluded the year at a much lower £34.53 per share. At the time of writing, the American ride-hailing company has a market capitalisation of £8.48 billion.