Lyft, Inc.

I'd now like to hand over the call to Sonia Banerjee, head of investor relations. You may now begin the conference.

Thank you. Welcome to the Lyft earnings call for the third quarter of 2023. On the call today, we have our CEO, David Risher, and our CFO, Aaron Brewer. In addition, Kristen Sperchuk, our president, is here for the Q&A session. We'll make forward-looking statements on today's call relating to our business strategy and performance, future financial results, and guidance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied during this call. These factors and risks are described in our earnings materials and our recent SEC filing. All of the forward-looking statements that we make on today's call are based on our beliefs as of today. and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Our discussion will include non-GAAP financial measures, which are not a substitute for our GAAP results. Reconciliations of our historical GAAP to non-GAAP results may be found in our earnings materials, which are available on our IR website. Also, please be aware that today we've announced changes to our key business metrics. These changes are described in our press release and our supplemental slide deck, which are also available on our investor relations website. And with that, I'll pass the call to David. David?

Thank you, Sonia. Hey, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I am thrilled with our progress creating a customer-obsessed and financially strong Lyft. More drivers and riders are choosing Lyft every day. In fact, this is Post Q3, just in the past few weeks, our gross bookings have been the highest in our history. The actions we've taken over this year to refocus our business on drivers and riders, including pricing more competitively and improving the customer experience, are producing incredible results. In the first nine months of 2023, we supported over half a billion rides and generated more than $10 billion in gross bookings. Ride growth has accelerated each quarter this year, up 10% year-on-year in Q1, 17% in Q2, 20% in Q3. With better balance in our marketplace, prime time is at the lowest level it's been in years, and drivers' pickup times have gotten faster across our regions. These factors underpinned our very solid Q3 performance. A big headline this quarter is that more drivers are choosing Lyft and they're driving more often. In Q3, this resulted in an almost 45% year-over-year increase in the number of hours drivers spent using Lyft, with non-incentivized hours growing even faster. Our focus for drivers is on making Lyft the simplest way to earn, and it's paying off. So even while rider demand accelerated, our conversion rate, which means the share of ride intent that converts to rides taken was stable, and that translates to a higher volume of completed rides. Overall, our execution was impressive. Our teams worked in lockstep to prepare for back to school and return to office and delivered very strong results. For example, over the roughly 70 regions we targeted for back to school, and here we're really referring to university towns, ride share rides grew by 25% year on year. reflecting a surge in new and returning riders and drivers. And with return to office, morning commute rides grew even faster, up more than 30% year-on-year the last week in September. This means more after-work activity, too. We're seeing a pickup in weekday evening rides, particularly Thursdays and Fridays, all of this great execution. Bottom line, we're having more people get out and get connected, which is core to our purpose and something we're really excited to see. And we'll continue to listen to customers and act on what we're learning to create differentiated experiences. Women Plus Connect, which we introduced in early September, is a great example. It's a feature that prioritizes matching women and non-binary drivers and riders, giving them more comfort, more camaraderie, and more control when they use Lyft. In our early access cities, we've seen great results. More than half of eligible drivers have opted into this feature. It's very unusual. and are keeping the feature turned on nearly the entire time they're online. I actually want to give you a little color just on this. The feedback we've gotten has been amazing. Ambrosia, one of the drivers in Chicago, told us, quote, having Women Plus Connect actually encourages me to drive more. And Amy, a driver in Phoenix, says, I find myself driving more at night with Women Plus Connect, which has allowed new opportunities for me to earn money. So listen carefully to what the drivers are saying. Both examples speak to how customer-obsessed features can directly improve their experience, but also our business metrics. In this case, increasing driver hours, which of course leads to more rides on the platform. Last thing we'll say about this right now is customers and city officials have taken notice, and they're asking us when Women Plus Connect will be available in their markets. That's why we accelerated the rollout of Women Plus Connect to an additional 50 cities and towns last week, and we expect it to be available nationwide early next year. Women Plus Connect is a great example of the type of innovation that customers want, and it can reinforce our brand, expand our addressable market, and help drive preference and growth over time. As we move into the holiday season, we will continue to deliver new customer-obsessed features targeted to driver and rider needs. As one example, we want to make getting to and from airports stress-free. We've already done a ton of work this year to make scheduled rides highly reliable. We actually have a big announcement coming tomorrow that will provide even more peace of mind to riders going to the airport this holiday season. So please stay tuned for that. Finally, I want to touch on a small but growing part of our business that can improve our margins over time, Lyft Media. We have a great opportunity to connect brands with our millions of riders in ways that deliver differentiated, relevant messages and experiences. In Q3, our Lyft media unit launched in-app advertising, which adds to our in-car, on-car, and on-street offerings that you've probably seen if you've been in Manhattan recently. We can tailor ads to where a rider is heading and to their lifestyle. So imagine you're on the way to the movies, and getting an ad that allows you to pre-order your drinks and your popcorn. It's a great experience. It means you're even readier to go by the time you get there. This is what's opening up conversations with partners like Universal Pictures who want to help design and co-launch new ad products, including in-app video advertising, which we'll roll out this quarter. It's still early days, and this is a small business now, but we see a ton of potential to be creative in how we enable brands to engage with riders in relevant moments. and build a meaningful and, of course, very high margin ad business. Now, before I turn the call over to Aaron, it's worth taking just a moment to reflect on the road we've traveled over this year and really over my first seven months or so. We've refocused our business, we've streamlined our cost structure, and we are operating in a healthy and competitive way. We're also building a culture of true customer obsession and operational excellence. These are all foundational to our ability to deliver profitable growth. In fact, a phrase you'll hear me say several times is customer obsession drives profitable growth, and that's what we're seeing. So as we move on to 2024, we've got our foot on the pedal. I want to say a huge thanks to the entire Lyft team for their unbelievable work. We've got a lot more to do, but we're super excited about the road ahead. Erin, over to you.