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Lyft’s First Results After I.P.O. Show $1.14 Billion Quarterly Loss

John Zimmer, left, and Logan Green, the founders of Lyft, at a party in March celebrating the ride-hailing company’s I.P.O.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — The ride-hailing company Lyft went public in March in a blaze of hype. But it stumbled quickly and its shares slid below their offering price amid questions about whether the company could make money.

On Tuesday, it answered the question by saying 2019 would be its most money-losing year yet.

In its first financial results as a public company, Lyft posted a loss of $1.14 billion for the first quarter, compared with a loss of $234.3 million in the same period a year earlier. The widening loss was driven by a $894 million charge for its stock-based compensation. Excluding that expense, the loss was $211.5 million. The company’s revenue rose 95 percent to $776 million.

Brian Roberts, Lyft’s chief financial officer, said the losses would continue this year, which would be “our peak loss year and then we will move steadily towards profitability.” That’s because Lyft plans to invest heavily in new branches of its business, including its short-term rentals of electronic bikes and scooters, its autonomous vehicle development and its rollout of driver centers that provide vehicle maintenance and other services to drivers, he said.

Lyft reported its earnings days before the scheduled initial public offering by its rival Uber, the largest technology company of the last few years to barrel onto the stock market. Uber has set a pricing range for its offering that values it at up to $91 billion. But it, too, is deeply unprofitable and has prompted questions about whether ride-hailing — which involves hefty spending to attract drivers and passengers — is a sustainable business in the long run.

“Both Lyft and Uber are expected to be losing money for years,” said Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida and an expert on public offerings. “The question is when, if ever, will they turn the corner.”

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Lyft’s shares were largely flat in after-hours trading. As of Tuesday’s market close, the stock was more than 17 percent below its offering price of $72 a share.

Logan Green, Lyft’s chief executive, said in a statement that the company was off to a “strong start to an important year.” He emphasized that Lyft was growing and that the number of active riders — those who had taken at least one ride in a quarter using the platform — had grown 46 percent over the past year, to 20.5 million.

Yet the company’s losses, even excluding the stock-based compensation expense, showed little improvement. Lyft’s spending also increased, with total costs and expenses rising to $1.9 billion in the quarter, compared with $643 million a year earlier.

The stock-based compensation charge was substantial because in the first earnings report after its public offering, Lyft had to account for all of the stock that employees had vested over the past several years. In subsequent quarters, the expense will probably decrease because it will reflect just stock that has vested during the quarter.

Some analysts said they were looking more at Lyft’s growth metrics. John Blackledge, a senior research analyst at Cowen, said he had “baked in” expectations of losses for Lyft and was paying more attention to numbers such as “robustness in riders and revenue per rider.” Tom White, a senior research analyst at the financial firm D.A. Davidson, said Lyft’s losses were moderating and that it was “better than people were expecting.”

Lyft forecast that its revenue would grow to as much as $3.3 billion by the end of 2019, up 53 percent from a year earlier. That would be slower than 2018, when the company’s revenue doubled.

Lyft also announced that it was expanding its partnerships with autonomous vehicle manufacturers. That includes entering a partnership with Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Under the deal, Lyft plans to offer rides in the Phoenix area on 10 of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles. Lyft has said that it prefers to work with companies that manufacture self-driving cars rather than building its own.

One of Waymo’s sister companies, CapitalG, an investment firm under Alphabet, is an investor in Lyft and holds a 2.4 percent stake in the ride-hailing company. Waymo and Lyft have discussed ways to collaborate on autonomous vehicles for years.

The partnership will allow Lyft users “to take what for many will be their first ride in a self-driving vehicle,” John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Later this week, Lyft faces a different challenge. On Wednesday, ride-hailing drivers across the United States — and in Britain and Australia — are expected to strike before Uber’s public offering to protest low wages and other grievances.

Drivers work as independent contractors, not as full-time employees, making them ineligible for benefits and other perks. The ride-hailing companies have said drivers’ freelance status gives them flexibility. In San Francisco, where Lyft and Uber are based, some drivers said they planned to log out of the company’s apps and not provide rides between noon and midnight.

“We know that access to flexible, extra income makes a big difference for millions of people, and we’re constantly working to improve how we can best serve our driver community,” a Lyft spokesman said.

Follow Kate Conger on Twitter: @kateconger.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: After I.P.O., Lyft Posts Loss Of $1.14 Billion for Quarter. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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