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Lyft cofounders Logan Green and John Zimmer said at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference on Tuesday that they expected the company to be profitable by the fourth quarter of 2021, a year earlier than analyst forecasts.
The news sent Lyft shares surging as much as 11%, their biggest intraday increase since the stock’s first day of public trading, in late March. Uber’s stock also got a boost, climbing almost 8% at its intraday peak.
“We’ve never laid out our path to profitability, and we know that’s a question on a lot of investors’ minds,” Green said in an interview at the conference, adding, “We’re going to be profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis a year before analysts expect us to.”
He said that Lyft would “hit this target in Q4 2021.”
The announcement came amid a rough year for Lyft and its ride-sharing rival Uber as investors have increasingly been hesitant to invest in unprofitable unicorns. Lyft reported a loss of $644 million for the second quarter. Both companies’ stock prices have fallen significantly since their initial public offerings.
Lyft did not have a clear path to profitability when it went public in March, leading to volatility in the stock. It was losing money and investing heavily to grow quickly and had said it expected 2019 to be its worst year for financial losses.
Still, Wall Street has remained bullish on the ride-hailing company. Analysts have 26 “buy” ratings, 10 “holds,” and just two “sells” on the stock.
Even amid the stock surge, Lyft is down 38% since its IPO.
