Lyft
shares gave back much of their gains late Tuesday after soaring more than 60% in after-hours trading. It turns out the big move was largely because of a typo.
The stock was up 21% as of 9 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, the morning after the company confirmed on a call with analysts that the earnings release contained an error that made the company’s 2024 forecast look better than it intended.
The press release had referenced 500 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion for 2024. It should have said 50 basis points. (A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.)
In response to an analyst’s question on the earnings conference call, management acknowledged the error. A company spokesperson confirmed the correction with Barron’s said updates were coming to the press release and an SEC filing to “correct the clerical error.”
The company has since issued a corrected press release.
Earnings were otherwise solid for the fourth quarter. Lyft said gross bookings rose 17% from a year earlier, to $3.7 billion, and revenue rose 4%, to $1.2 billion. Gross bookings are the total value of customer transactions including taxes, tolls, and fees, but excluding tips.
Lyft reported a quarterly net loss of $26.3 million, compared with a net loss of $588.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Lyft reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 18 cents a share, better than the 8 cents a share analysts surveyed by FactSet expected.
“In 2023, the Lyft team set ambitious goals and the results speak for themselves,” CEO David Risher said. “We reached the highest level of annual riders in our history, delivered over 700 million rides, and helped drivers take home over $8 billion.”
Its results echoed the robust fourth-quarter earnings that rival Uber Technologies reported last week, when it said gross bookings surged 22%. Uber’s earnings of 66 cents a share on revenue of $9.94 billion went well beyond the 16 cents a share on revenue of $9.76 billion expected.
Uber’s bookings also surpassed forecasts, growing 22% to $37.6 billion from the previous fourth quarter.
Write to Janet H. Cho at [email protected]
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