Expense report management company Certify says
SAN FRANCISCO — Lyft has chipped away at the market share held by its much larger ride-hailing rival Uber, at least when it comes to business travelers.
After notching very slight gains in the second through fourth fiscal quarters of 2016, Lyft jumped nearly 3 percentage points in Q1 and Q2 of this year, to 9.7% and 12.5% respectively.
That’s the same period in which Uber has been grappling with an incessant stream of issues ranging from charges of sexual discrimination to investigations into questionable business practices .
The data comes from a survey of business users’ credit card spending out Thursday from expense management software company Certify, which analyzed data from 10 million receipts and expenses provided by 2,500 corporate clients.
Despite Lyft’s improvement, Uber continues to have a dominant position in the U. S. ride hailing game, with 87.5% of the market, according to Certify.
Lyft did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the findings.
Michael Goodwin, head of business development at Uber for Business, suggested that Certify’s data likely was not a full picture of Uber’s corporate business.
“We are seeing more organizations partner with us because we can provide a centralized bill, which eliminates the need for rides to flow through expense platforms in the first place, ” Goodwin told USA TODAY. “With centralized billing, companies can receive a single statement of all trips from the month and offer employees the smoothest possible experience.”
While Uber may have ceded some passengers to Lyft in recent quarters, it has still managed to grow largely by raiding businesses that used to be business traveler mainstays: rental cars and taxis.
When factoring in the losses to those transportation categories, Uber and Lyft both increased their share of the business transportation market by 2 percentage points last quarter, according to Certify data. Car rental share of the market dropped 2 percentage points to 29%, and taxis dropped 2 points to 8%.
“If you’ re taxi provider, you’ ve got to get a new game plan, ” says Certify CEO Robert Neveu.
Both Lyft and Uber are private companies that divulge little about their business operations. But Certify’s numbers largely echo other reports that indicate that Uber has been giving up market share to its U. S. rival steadily since a rash of issues surfaced that caused some riders to delete Uber’s app.
Uber has a market valuation of nearly $70 billion compared to Lyft’s $7 billion. But while Lyft is focused on the U. S., Uber currently operates in more than 80 counties, and has recently had to give up on dreams of dominance in the Asian and Russian markets .
Follow USA TODAY tech reporter Marco della Cava @marcodellacava
