In the race to transportation domination, Uber is zooming ahead of Lyft -- but both are running out of gas, at least in the United States.
A year ago, both transportation app startups were growing their customer bases 25 to 30 percent each month in the U.S., according to a new data analysis from FutureAdvisor. But by May of this year, that rate had plummeted to about 10 percent for both companies.
That's vaguely ominous news. It means that even as these companies launch in new U.S. cities left and right, they're just not adding new customers as quickly as they once were. The better growth opportunities lie elsewhere.
Uber seems aware of this trend: CEO Travis Kalanick said Monday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference that Uber is "growing faster" in Europe than in the U.S. and that Beijing is one of Uber's fastest-growing markets, though he didn't say by what metrics. The startup has already launched in 44 foreign countries.
Lyft has yet to launch in a foreign country at all. And given the regulatory fury Uber has met in Europe, culminating with a recent ban in Germany, it's unlikely to be an easy place to play catch-up.
Now, several relevant things to note about the data analysis: The growth rates only look at new customers and ignore ride volume growth, which is a significant oversight. The growth rates listed are also relative to the companies' sizes, not absolute. Uber is adding new customers five times faster than Lyft, but when adjusted for size, Lyft's growth rates have stayed higher than Uber's all year.
The data set is not comprehensive, but it's fairly broad. FutureAdvisor, an automated investment advisory firm, crunched 3.8 million U.S. cardholders' credit and debit purchases from May 2013 to May 2014. Within those 3.8 million people, the analysis found 96,000 Uber and Lyft riders who had taken 1.4 million rides.
Surprisingly, only 2.5 percent of riders in the dataset used both Uber and Lyft in the year-long period. Despite bold proclamations from the New York Times about how the services are "indistinguishable commodities," riders appear to stick with whatever app they already use, regardless of price fluctuations. (Drivers are understandably less loyal, given that it's their source of income, not just a casual expense.)
That low rate of wishy-washy riders is good news for Lyft. Uber's in numerous cities where Lyft isn't yet, which means riders there might be opting for Uber from lack of choice, not deep brand loyalty. If Lyft can convert Uber customers, it has more to gain, since it currently has such a small foothold.
And make no mistake, Uber is clobbering Lyft in the U.S. right now. Uber gave seven times as many rides as Lyft during the studied year. Its fares were also on average 1.6 times as expensive -- the average Uber ride cost $21 and the average Lyft ride cost $13. Overall, riders spent 12 times as much money on Uber than on Lyft.
Those stats should be taken with a grain of salt. The data analysis declares that Uber's revenues are 12 times Lyft's -- but that's actually measuring total amount paid in fares, not amount the companies pocket. Both companies have been squeezing down their cut of the fare since January in an attempt to drop prices while not enraging drivers. Lyft took zero revenue for months and Uber actually paid drivers more than they earned in some markets, so using credit-card charges to determine revenue is pretty off.
But however you slice it, Uber is way ahead. The size disparity should come as no surprise: Uber's most recent valuation is 19 times as big as Lyft's.
As the feud rages on, the battleground may keep moving away from its native San Francisco in search of pastures riper for the picking. Lyft's higher relative growth rate in the U.S. is promising, but Uber may have grabbed a strong advantage when it jumped overseas first.
"In any other industry, 10 percent growth month over month would be amazing. Shareholders would be over the moon," said FutureAdvisor spokesman Chris Nicholson. "In tech it’s like, 'meh.' Uber can see the writing on the wall in the U.S."
Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated how much bigger Uber's valuation is than Lyft's.
