Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steven Fox: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just said one. It’s obviously been a very dynamic environment that you’re dealing with over the last couple years. Based on what you know today, including the recent change in base pricing, how do we think about your expectations for what kind of driver supply you would like to bring on? What kind of ridership growth do you think is reasonable to assume? What is the normal pace of pricing decline going forward? How does the market place look to you from those aspects, say over the next 12-months? Thanks.

Logan Green: Yes, broadly we expect demand growth has been healthy, I think we saw in the back half of last year and continue to see healthy demand. And they kind of most notable changes is the real acceleration in driver supply. So I think it’s hard for us to, project out much further, but I think a lot of that kind of pandemic related swings are now behind us. And we’re going to be in more of a healthy steady state growth where it looks like supply growth, we’ll be able to track with demand growth going forward.

John Zimmer: Yes, just to emphasize that point. It’s like Logan said, like much more stable growth for us. And, as you mentioned, like the swings that we saw over the past few years, are much more costly and difficult to manage through. And so happy to see more of that stability on the horizon.

Steven Fox: I guess, just a follow up real quick on that. I guess you don’t want to put hard numbers on it, which I understand. But do we look back at what the pre-COVID business model looks like? Or are there distinct changes now when we think about pricing, or I know the technology is advanced, et cetera? Is there anything you would say, alright, this is a major change in how you look at the business versus COVID. Because of x, y, z.

John Zimmer: I think the major change structurally was just, the highest variable costs insurance, went up. And again, that’s going up for everyone in the industry, that’s the most material change. Other than that, I’d say our tools have gotten better, because we’ve had to manage those extreme swings, primarily from like a year plus ago. So we built all these tools for oversupply under supply that we’re continuing to refine and use, on a market-by-market basis. But in general, the only major structural difference is the higher insurance.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line up Lloyd Walmsley with UBS.

Lloyd Walmsley: Yes, I had a question about the gain on sale and disposal of assets. I think it was about $61 million in ’22, am I right to assume that’s all coming from sale of flex cars at kind of above carrying value. And does that flow through the new definition or the old definition of EBITDA? And how does this kind of fall in used car prices? How does it change the opportunity to continue to kind of monetize that fleet going forward? Thanks.

Elaine Paul : Yes, largely that does reflect the remarketing of vehicles. And in this quarter-on-quarter, we project a modest decline related to that. And we continue to see that as an opportunity in our business as we all fleet vehicles to continue to put them for sale in the aftermarket.

Lloyd Walmsley: Okay, does that I mean, is that the core operating federate business? Something you guys are still see as an attractive business to provide your supplier or is it a function of, hey, we don’t — that supply comes back. We don’t need that as much and so we can kind of offload some of the vehicles.

John Zimmer: I said still attractive because the individuals that use Express Drive, drive many hours and so it’s a great high-quality lever for that type of supply.

Logan Green: And the fleet remarketing is a steady state part of the business. there’ very kind of subtle timing adjustments that we make. But that’ll be an evergreen aspect of the business.