{"id":25715,"date":"2020-02-19T14:58:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T11:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/corp\/blog\/?p=21548"},"modified":"2025-08-05T06:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T06:39:20","slug":"uber-lyft-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/investor\/stock-market\/uber-lyft-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber vs Lyft: The Battle for the US Rages On"},"content":{"rendered":"

To this day, Uber and Lyft remain two of the most intriguing publicly traded companies. Their cash burn is real: the companies lost a combined $10 billion dollars in 2019 alone. However, the promise of big future returns keeps the companies well funded and locked in an everlasting battle.<\/p>\n

Even though both companies are deep in the red, their combined market cap stands at $81.5 billion dollars. Uber is now worth $68.1 billion to Lyft\u2019s $13.5 billion, which means Lyft\u2019s market cap<\/a> is just about a fifth of Uber\u2019s. It doesn\u2019t look like much of a competition, but looks can be deceiving. Uber runs a global empire, while Lyft is active in a handful of countries. To be able to compare their operations, we\u2019ll focus on their biggest market: The US.<\/p>\n

The biggest takeaway from our research is that in the US, Lyft is closing in on Uber.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how Lyft is closing the gap by exploring the trends in Similarweb\u2019s data in three crucial metrics: Install Penetration, Daily Active Users (DAUs), and Downloads<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Uber vs Lyft Install Penetration<\/h2>\n

Install Penetration gives us the percentage of devices with a given app installed on it. It is a proxy of reach and market penetration and is helpful when trying to determine what market share<\/a> different participants of a given market hold.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n

In January 2018, Uber had an install penetration rate of 24.7%, almost four times Lyft\u2019s install penetration which stood at 6.8%. Twelve months later, Lyft had already made up some ground, and Uber\u2019s install penetration was now less than three times as big as Lyft\u2019s. Today, Uber\u2019s install penetration stands at 28.8% to Lyft\u2019s 12.9%, just a bit more than double Lyft\u2019s install penetration. While Lyft isn\u2019t an immediate threat to Uber in terms of market share, the gap is clearly shrinking.<\/p>\n

Uber vs Lyft DAUs<\/h2>\n

The Daily active users<\/a> metric indicates the number of people using an app on a daily basis. The more users come back every day, the stickier an app is. A strong and committed user base is a key to success in many industries, including ride-hailing.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n

Two years ago, Uber had twice as many DAUs as Lyft. With 1 million DAUs in the US, Uber dominated the market. However, since then, this dominance is fading fast. Uber\u2019s DAUs barely grew in the past two years, while Lyft\u2019s DAUs increased by 40%<\/a>, from 514,000 to 720,000. The result is that Lyft now has two-thirds of the DAUs Uber has – quite the catch-up in two years.<\/p>\n

Uber vs Lyft Downloads<\/h2>\n

When it comes to downloads, the numbers indicate the level of interest consumers are displaying in each ride-hailing company. While downloads don\u2019t always translate to active users, they are very helpful in estimating the future user base of a company. After all, you can\u2019t be part of the user base without downloading the app first.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n

Today, Lyft has an astounding 84% of the downloads Uber has, up from 68% two years ago, and 65% last year. After both companies added a significant amount of downloads during Q2 and early Q3 2019, Uber\u2019s downloads number<\/a> came crashing down, while Lyft managed to keep its numbers of downloads steady at about 2.5 million downloads a month.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Uber is still the #1 ride-hailing company in the US. However, what was once a foregone conclusion is now hotly contested by Lyft, which threatens to take over from Uber after making big steps towards closing the gap in 2019.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in more insights, on March 4, Similarweb and Second Measure will be partnering to deliver an exciting webinar on Uber and Lyft. For the first time, two alternative data providers<\/a> are joining forces to show you how their data sets can be combined to discover new and unique insights into the ride-hailing industry.<\/p>\n

During the webinar, both companies will share their insights on Uber vs Lyft<\/a>, while discussing the process leading to their insights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To this day, Uber and Lyft remain two of the most intriguing publicly traded companies. Their cash burn is real: the companies lost a combined $10 billion dollars in 2019 alone. However, the promise of big future returns keeps the companies well funded and locked in an everlasting battle. Even though both companies are deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":30308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2807,6642],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investor","category-stock-market"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUber vs Lyft: Lyft Is Closing in on Uber | Similarweb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"See how Lyft is closing the gap by exploring the trends in Similarweb\u2019s data in 3 crucial metrics: Install Penetration, Daily Active Users & Downloads.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/investor\/stock-market\/uber-lyft-race\/\" \/>\n<meta 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