Lyft shares crushed by weak Q1 guidance

Lyft beat the street in revenue in the fourth quarter, but that wasn’t enough to appease investors who reacted to the ride-hailing company’s weak forecast for the first three months of 2023.

Lyft lowered its first-quarter revenue expectation to $975 million. Analysts expected the company to pledge $1.09 billion in revenue. That guidance sent shares tumbling 25% in after-hours trading Thursday to $12.13.

Lyft on Thursday reported fourth-quarter revenue of $1.2 billion, a 21% increase from $969.9 million generated in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for all of 2022 was $4.1 billion, or 28% year-over-year from $3.2 billion in 2021.

Lyft’s revenue, active passenger and revenue per active passenger exceeded analysts’ expectations, ending the year with 20.36 million active passengers and $57.72 in revenue per active passenger, an increase of 8, 7% and 11.5% compared to last year.

Still, shareholders were more affected by the company’s first-quarter guidance.

Lyft needed a win after its third-quarter earnings report, when the company missed Wall Street estimates for revenue and active riders, sending its stock tumbling 22%. Despite the pace, Lyft shares fell 3.16% at market close and are trading down nearly 24% after hours.

Lyft’s net loss was $588.1 million in the fourth quarter, down from $283.2 million a year earlier. Lyft attributes much of that loss to $201.3 million in stock-based compensation and related payroll taxes.

The company also recorded a loss of $29.5 million in severance and other salary costs, as well as $9.5 million in net stock-based compensation expense, following layoffs in the fourth quarter. . In November, Lyft cut 13% of its workforce in an effort to reduce operating expenses. At the time, the company estimated that it would incur between $27 million and $32 million due to the restructuring.

All of those losses compounded to take Lyft to a full-year net loss of $1.6 billion, up from a net loss of $1.1 billion in 2021.

The company ended the quarter with $1.8 billion in cash.