Within the short span, Lyft and Uber have emerged as two strongest ride-hailing giants and both the companies are rapidly expanding their business and they are adding the novel services to their entire business structure. And they are making many attempts to gain the huge customer base. That is the important and adequate strategy that is required for the ride-hailing company.
Uber has the search engine giants like Baidu and Google Ventures. Baidu is the China’s largest search engine. These two search engines are the part of the company’s array of investors. The investment funds have raised the company to the 48th most valuable and powerful brand in the United States.
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Uber’s latest round of funding has estimated above $2billion.
Lyft, the strong competitor of Uber has reached $1billion in mid-2015. The prominent investors of Lyft are Rakuten, Mayfield Fund, Alibaba, Carl Icahn, and K9 ventures. There is three-lag between Uber and Lyft, despite that Lyft has emerged as the strongest competitor of Uber. They work with the spirit and they have achieved this level. Lyft services operate in 60+ cities in the united States but Uber is a global company and it is operated in 200+ company, despite these much variations Lyft strives hard to maintain its position and it tries to overtake Uber. Lyft is better than Uber in many aspects.
Lyft follows the better company culture than Uber. Lyft is the nice place for the drivers and the company encourages the drivers to earn more. With the Lyft app, there is an option to tip the drivers along with their fares; it is not the compulsory one, the passengers who are interested can give tip to their drivers. If the Lyft driver has rated their passenger with the three points or less, they will not be matched with the passenger again. And above all, Lyft offers the popular Power Driver Bonuses, if the driver completes the certain number of trips per week they will receive the bonus.
For the $0.50 transaction fee, the company allows the drivers to cash out the fares on the same day in which the driver has earned that amount. This will be expensive if the driver faces some unexpected expenses or any financial shortfalls. This feature is called the Express Pay, and still, Uber didn’t issue this offer to its drivers.
Lyft offers some exciting prices for its drivers like if they complete 100 rides, they will receive a free glowstache and if they complete the 1000 rides that will receive a free jacket.
Lyft’s Job Security
If the drivers drive often and they depend heavily on the ride-sharing as their means of income, in such situations, both the platforms can pay the drivers in many unexpected ways. In some point of time, both the companies will go offline for some reason or the other and having the other company as the backup will help the drivers to earn their daily income. And both the platforms will deactivate the drivers for some reason or the other, in such situation the other company will help the drivers to earn their income. And in some situations the driver will be put on hold due to the bad passenger ratings or the reviews, so they will request the driver to halt their driving for some time, till the investigation gets completed.
If the driver gets into any accident, they have to produce the photographic evidence and the company will tell the driver to take rest until he gets cured, in some medical emergency situation, the company will support the driver in his treatment. They will provide some cash offers, or they will pay the entire treatment bills.
In the case of the passenger rating system, most passengers will not notice the minor scratches in the vehicle, so this will not prevent a driver from the five-star ratings. Almost all the tech companies have been monitoring the Lyft approach to its business and they have started to use Lyft and they even recommend their employees as well.
Apple and Lyft partnership
Apple, the biggest technology giant, has sent an email to its employees informing their employees about the change in the transportation policy. Apple has said that they are happy to have a partnership with Lyft. In that email, the company has instructed their employees to use Lyft for the safe, convenient, and affordable rides when they are traveling out for their business process.
It is one of the greatest achievements for the Chief Business Offices of Lyft, David Baga; he didn’t talk about the deal, but the most popular and valuable company in the world has picked Lyft for transportation purpose. This time, Uber is not the Apple provides and it is the time for Lyft to show its quality of service. Lyft will definitely cherish this movement.
Baga, who was working with Lyft in August, is now working to save his company from the big hole when it comes to the corporate journey. Uber, one of the ride-hailing giants started its career with the black cars, the company is hurrying its consultants and bankers to conduct meeting with its clients. Today, Uber occupies a leading position in the ride-hailing business travel.
In January 2015, just 1% of the business travelers preferred Lyft. At that time, Uber represented the 46% of the business travelers’ preference, and taxi cabs were leading in this section with 53%. Now, everything has changed completely. In March 2016, the taxi cabs market was 27% and Uber was leading with 69% and Lyft had 4% market.
When the company began its journey in 2012, Lyft initially targeted few cities. Then the company came up with the idea that regular people could pick up their own cars and they will depend on the professional drivers. Lyft’s policy was “your friend is inside your car”.
Baga checked the first step of Lyft, called Zimride and he stayed in touch with the company’s founders Logan Green and John Zimmer in the in-between years, from that time he started loving Logan and Green’s passion.
Today, the company has changed its slogan to “you will have a ride when you need it”, this is the message that Baga is trying to convey to his potential corporate partners. Baga’s team includes 100+ employees that include few corporate teams. With his team, he started to improve Lyft’s business.
The company started to expand its business and entered many new cities and now it plans to enter other cities, where there is an absence of Lyft’s operation.
Lyft will enter 100+ US cities
Lyft plans to enter 100 more US cities by the end of 2017. In 2016, the company has entered 40 new cities. And with this, Lyft will cover 300 US cities. The company plans to have smarter coverage. But still, Lyft will have the smaller coverage than Uber. Uber has hit the 300 cities target in the second quarter of 2015.
The company has no plans for international expansion, which is both the plus and weak point of Lyft. The company has partnerships with the other countries, but still, it remains inside the U.S. if Lyft is expanded to other countries, it will have more chances for the ride-hailing business and it will have more competition than this.