Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio.
Speaker 2: News lifcio Dave Risha joins us for more. Good morning, David,
Speaker 2: there's something really interesting in your kind of forward looking
Speaker 2: strategy commentary on the cool Uber talks about something the same.
Speaker 2: There are parts of this country, America where ride share
Speaker 2: is less pervasive, people don't use as much, probably they
Speaker 2: drive their own car.
Speaker 1: You want to go.
Speaker 2: After that market? Why and how so?
Speaker 3: The answer is we've gotten really good at obsessing over
Speaker 3: our customers and we want to take it bigger and
Speaker 3: go bigger. I mean, look, this is our sixteenth consecutive
Speaker 3: quarter of growth. You know, we're a profitable company. We're
Speaker 3: generating nine hundred million dollars of cash, and yet yet
Speaker 3: the rideshare market is still tiny. One hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: billion rides in the United States every year and we
Speaker 3: only do a couple three billion between the two of us.
Speaker 3: So there's so much opportunity. It really is better to
Speaker 3: be in the back of the car having someone else
Speaker 3: drive you, and we want to do it in places
Speaker 3: like Indianapolis and others where you know, the opportunities even
Speaker 3: bigger cash.
Speaker 2: When last year on which was just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: we were talking about M and A in Europe, and
Speaker 2: with respect it was a modest deal. The buy back
Speaker 2: is clearly well received by your investors. Yeah, but that
Speaker 2: would indicate that you have some ability to do M
Speaker 2: and A going forward, you know, do you see that
Speaker 2: in your capital plans? And if you did buy something,
Speaker 2: what would it be.
Speaker 3: So, so, first, thanks for acknowledging it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a business that is now.
Speaker 3: Generating nearly a billion of dollars of cash in the
Speaker 3: trailing twelve months.
Speaker 1: So that's a wonderful place to be.
Speaker 3: Again, huge thanks to the incredible team that has been
Speaker 3: working so dang hard to make this business not only
Speaker 3: great for customers, but great for shareholders as well.
Speaker 1: So now the question is, right, what are other opportunities?
Speaker 3: I would say our near term focus is making the
Speaker 3: cash that we've got, you know, putting it to work.
Speaker 3: As you say, we just acquired free now, which will
Speaker 3: allow us to expand internationally.
Speaker 1: You know, nothing more.
Speaker 3: Obviously to announce right now, aside from the the buyback,
Speaker 3: of course, but it's created me in a strong position.
Speaker 3: We've got a strong bound sheet and a strong income statement.
Speaker 3: So it feels that's a good place to be.
Speaker 4: And it's a strong position that you managed to fend
Speaker 4: off Engine Capital David in terms of they were a
Speaker 4: pushy investor wanting changes potentially at a board level, but they've
Speaker 4: withdrawn that because of what you've given to the investor
Speaker 4: base in terms of buybacks, David.
Speaker 1: Is that a cyber relief?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we talk to investors all the time.
Speaker 3: I would say maybe not so much the cyber relief
Speaker 3: as much as just it absolutely allows us to continue
Speaker 3: to focus on our writers and our drivers.
Speaker 1: That's sort of the big thing.
Speaker 3: But it's great that investors are responding so well to
Speaker 3: what it is that we're doing.
Speaker 1: Again, share buy back is great.
Speaker 3: You know, profitable growth, you know, quarter after quarter, that's great.
Speaker 3: And this is what I've always said, it's customer obsession
Speaker 3: that drives profitable growth and we're sort of seeing that
Speaker 3: play out now, and.
Speaker 4: That customer possession drives innovation, drives autonomous vehicles. I know
Speaker 4: you're looking at Atlanta, You've got a partnership there. How
Speaker 4: much are you going to see driverless vehiclesmatically you're going
Speaker 4: to have safety drivers in the car. What is that
Speaker 4: going to look like as a pilot?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a pilot that we're doing with
Speaker 3: main mobility.
Speaker 1: First, let's set back.
Speaker 3: Autonomous vehicles are going to come, right they're here in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, you see them everywhere. They're obviously in La
Speaker 3: and Austin and other places as well.
Speaker 1: They'll come. It'll be many, many years before they're a
Speaker 1: big deal.
Speaker 3: But as they come, it's such a great opportunity for
Speaker 3: ride share and for a lyft because it allows us
Speaker 3: to provide better service.
Speaker 1: Using different technologies.
Speaker 3: As you say, we'll be starting in Lantam in a
Speaker 3: couple of months middle of the summer. We will start
Speaker 3: with a sort of a confidence driver, someone else in
Speaker 3: the car to kind of help make sure that people
Speaker 3: feel comfortable with what's going on there. It'll be a
Speaker 3: fairly small scale pilot, but this is something it'll grow
Speaker 3: into Texas next year with a partnership with mobil I
Speaker 3: and others, and then we'll just keep building and building
Speaker 3: and building to the point where drivers are driving millions
Speaker 3: of people and autonomous vehicles are driving millions of people
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: David, you're a technology CEO, and as such you must
Speaker 2: field questions on economics and the state of trade and travel.
Speaker 1: It's our favorite thing to.
Speaker 2: Du Uber reflected on the idea of cross border travel
Speaker 2: Canada into the US, the inbound travel into the US
Speaker 2: being soft business travel. People arrive at airports, are they
Speaker 2: or are they not doing ride share? What are you
Speaker 2: seeing through the consumer about the state of this economy.
Speaker 1: I don't see. We're seeing strength.
Speaker 3: And I know a lot of people are trying to
Speaker 3: look ranular where why So.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a couple of examples.
Speaker 3: Let's actually go back literally to earlier this week Sincle Demya, right,
Speaker 3: that's not a holiday, that's necessarily a huge thing. But
Speaker 3: at the same time we saw one of our biggest
Speaker 3: sink of demayos. Ever, it's a very very strong day.
Speaker 3: Let's go back to the end of March. Last week
Speaker 3: in March was actually our strongest week ever in terms
Speaker 3: of ride volume. I think what we're seeing here is
Speaker 3: ridehare has become a very sort of base staple part
Speaker 3: of so many people's lives that I don't really expect
Speaker 3: a sort of consumer sentiment fluctuates around to see that
Speaker 3: much difference. I'll talk about airports for just a second,
Speaker 3: because you asked airports basically quarter to quarter are flat.
Speaker 1: It is true.
Speaker 3: Consumer Excuse me, the commute is going up faster. So
Speaker 3: if you look at it that way, consumers growing a
Speaker 3: little bit faster.
Speaker 1: Ecte me commute. I keep saying that.
Speaker 3: But you know, again, even when you look at airports, gosh,
Speaker 3: it's only one in five people who use right here
Speaker 3: to get to airports in the first place. That means
Speaker 3: eighty percent is still out there for sort of the
Speaker 3: you know, the picking. So I think our big focus
Speaker 3: is trying to expand the market. I don't think that
Speaker 3: the macro stuff is a big deal right.
Speaker 1: Now for us.
Speaker 4: You're growing in Canada, David. And it's interesting. I've asked
Speaker 4: this time and time again a start of ibm asked
Speaker 4: a voubask of a view. Is there any impact from
Speaker 4: being an American brand going into a country such as
Speaker 4: Canada right now? Because we are hearing of pushback thirty
Speaker 4: seconds you know, it's.
Speaker 1: So interesting, No is the real answer.
Speaker 3: In fact, we've just got authorization to open in Quebec,
Speaker 3: in the province of Quebec, which which we might have
Speaker 3: wondered whether it was going to happen given everything going on.
Speaker 3: So no, we've actually seen acceptance. Actually, Toronto's a big
Speaker 3: city for us, going super.
Speaker 4: Well, David Richard, so great to catch up with you
Speaker 4: about some of the numbers. We appreciate it lift to
Speaker 4: see it is a pleasure