Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Morton from MoffettNathanson.
Michael Morton: Hi. Thanks for the question. I was wondering if we could talk some more about the directional guidance for 2024 and what the expectations are for the performance of the advertising business as part of that guide. I remember a little while ago on Yahoo Finance, David referenced the potential for a $0.5 billion advertising business. So just trying to get a deeper understanding of the cadence of that advertising business going forward. Thank you.
David Risher: Yes, sure. Hey, Michael, it’s David. Yes, that’s one of those quotes that’s come back a couple times. I’ve seen that one. So that was meant to be aspirational and long term to be clear. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get there sooner or maybe later. Team is working pretty hard. I think, I hope I’m not saying anything out of line here, but last week they had their biggest sales week ever in history. We just announced that on stage, just internally and that’s on a Friday. So what does that tell you? That tells you that the business is growing fast by definition. It tells you it’s a good product market fit. It doesn’t tell you the size and we’re being deliberate about it. It’s not particularly large from a sort of overall total company perspective.
But again, we see really good fit with what our advertisers, our media partners are looking for. And you’ll see a lot of innovation on our side when it comes to new ad units. Just as a quick reminder and just for a big picture for one second. We have advertising units that we sell in the Lyft app. We have advertising units that we sell on tablets, which are in cars. You’ve probably seen them if you’ve been in New York City recently. We have advertising units we sell on top of cars. And then we even have, thanks again to our bike and scooter business, we’ve got panels, some of which are old school, and on panels, some of which are increasingly digital electrified panels in some cities. So we’ve got a really nice, and it’s one of the reasons why, on Super Bowl Sunday, for example, I mentioned, I think, I didn’t mention Zillow.
Zillow also did a big buyout. And they tend to be sort of multi-channel buyouts cost these sorts of multiple kind of ad outlets, sort of surround sound type things. And it’s something that we can provide that there aren’t a lot of other ways in the physical and digital world. And that’s really quite interesting, right? Because the physical world still turns out to be quite important to a lot of people, and we’re right there in front of them. So anyway, all that’s really just kind of meant to be color. In terms of the actual numbers though, we’re not releasing those yet. But for sure, it’ll be something you’ll be hearing us talk more about. Over time, I do stand by my prediction. I’m just not putting out time frame rather.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Choi from UBS.
Steven Choi: Okay, thank you. David, I think you have in the past talked about the marketplace connecting of supply and demand as sort of the base level service, and you were really looking forward to rolling out incremental value added services. So any directional pointers you can share with us and how the product development has been progressing here, and maybe advertising as you just alluded to is one piece, but what else should we be thinking about? Thank you.
David Risher: Yes, this is always an area where I get frustrated as just myself, because of course I always want to talk about all the things we’ve got on the pipeline, but it’s not such a good idea. I think thus I have to sort of keep talking about some of the same things. Let’s look at Comfort Plus for just a second. Comfort Plus, relatively small product from the portfolio, but I think we’ve given about 2 million rides or so since we’ve launched it. And that’s wonderful. And it’s not a product we’ve particularly marketed. We play around with a little bit on site stuff, but there’s more we can do there when people want either a slightly larger car, slightly newer car, or at least in my case sometimes a slightly quieter car is another option to get there.
So that’s a sort of small example. Online pickup promise. Again, today it’s very focused on airports, right? But that doesn’t necessarily have to be where you stop with that or a promise like that. You can imagine all sorts of ways that we can guarantee reliability and maybe charge a premium for it. So there’s a lot more to do there. I wish I could get more specific. But I’m going to have to sort of leave it there. But I think one of the things that’s really, that I just enjoy frankly about, pardon me, my job and about the team is how focused folks are on coming up with amazing new ideas for customers. Expect to see a lot more over time.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Yusuf Squali from Truist Securities.
Yusuf Squali: Great. Thank you, guys for taking the questions. First, David, you said that 20% of rides had a connection to partners back in 2023. I was wondering was it in 2022? And as you look at 2024, are you expecting additional or the guide vacant in additional partners that have yet to be announced? And Erin, relative to that 50 basis point improvement in margins 2024 versus 2023. As we look beyond, I know you’re not guiding to beyond 2024 yet, just yet, but as we look beyond it from a modeling perspective, is it, what are the things that happen in 2024 that may actually preclude you from having that 50 basis point be sustainable beyond 2024? If you can point to one or two, please.
David Risher: Hey, Yusuf, it’s David. I’ll start and again, Erin will tag team with me. So unfortunately, I have to disappoint you a little bit. We’re not going to give specifics on that percentage, how we expect it to change, but I will add a little color because I think it helps tell the story. And the word partners such a broad word, it’s maybe helpful to have a bit of a framework. You might think of some of these partners, unless you Chase as an example, of a fairly clear value proposition where Chase is not the largest credit card issuer, or I think they are actually the largest credit card issuer in North America. They have a, we have a very strategic and long-term relationship with them involving Chase Sapphire in particular, where people can earn points by using their Chase Sapphire card.
And that’s something as a driver, I hear fairly regularly from my riders that they say that’s the reason that they choose Lyft. So those sorts of, and then we have a similar issue with Delta. We have similar issues with Alaska Airlines. There’s a lot more we can do with all of those. I mentioned briefly by the way, those partnerships sometimes start in one way and then they morph to a different thing. So Alaska Airlines, or excuse me, Delta Airlines, started as a points partnership. It’s now evolved to be a commute partnership, right? So because as I say, flight crews get transported by Lyft to the airports. Let me give you some other examples. Again, just purely for color. With Amazon, we have a relationship with them where we’re providing a certain amount of support for their distribution center workers, as well as some business travel.
The Starbucks, I mentioned early on and so I did with Delta. FedEx. So FedEx, we help them get to and from their distribution centers, again, in kind of a commute context. And then similar with LinkedIn. LinkedIn actually had an instant situation with return to office where their parking lots actually ran out of space. And so we now, with our Lyft pass product, provide a commute solution for them. So each of these, and you’ve heard us talk about health care in the past, which has had some nice growth. Again, these are relatively small individually, but collectively they turn out to be quite meaningful. And so again, without wanting to sort of get ahead of myself on exactly a percentage prediction, whatever it is, I’ll say it’s a part of the business where we’re making real investments because we see a lot of opportunity.
And they tend to be, by the way, quite sticky relationships, which is nice, right? If you’re doing a good job for your partner, there’s no reason for that partner to switch. And so that provides us some long-term stability, as well as potentially higher margin and of course incremental rights.
Erin Brewer : And thanks, I’ll take the question. You’re right. I’m not going to comment on things beyond the directional guide we gave for 2024, but to the extent it’s helpful, I think it’s interesting to think about, in our remarks and today in the Q&A, we’ve sort of touched on three key areas, continuous innovation, ride share perfection, and sort of leaning into this partnership-driven growth. I suppose the other element, as you think about expansion over time, would relate to cost discipline, which frankly is the hallmark of any durable, profitable business. If you think about all of those four things, they’re not meant to be sort of annual things that have an expiration date. These are sort of core ways that we think about what it means to have a healthy business, right?
Innovation and continuous innovation, ride share perfection, if you think about what it takes to be deliver great execution at scale, meaning millions and millions of rides every day, and doing all of those things with a laser focus. That’s very much a continuous cycle as well. So those are some of the ways that I think I would think about. I think we’ve touched on sort of underpinnings of the way that we would, or running the business in 2024 and they’re all fairly durable themes.
Operator: This will conclude our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back to Lyft CEO David Risher for any closing comments.
