Lyft CEO David Risher Says His Company Is Gaining Market Share Against Uber

With the help of new product rollouts and a renewed focus on customer service, Lyft (LYFT) CEO David RIsher says his company is beginning to close the gap with Uber (UBER), which continues to dominate the ride-sharing market. “We’re beginning to make some inroads against those other guys,” Risher said at the Harvard Business Review Leadership Summit yesterday (April 29).

Risher acknowledged that taking on such a dominant competitor—especially one that many Lyft drivers also work for—is no easy feat. But he believes recent feature rollouts are starting to make a real difference. These include tools that connect female drivers and riders, an option for riders to opt out of surge pricing, and an upcoming simplified app interface designed for older users.

“The through-line through all this is we want to level up the service,” said Risher.

When Risher became CEO in 2023, Lyft’s share of the ride-sharing market was around 26 to 27 percent, he said. That number has since climbed to approximately 30 to 31 percent. (The rest is Uber.) Outside the U.S., Lyft has expanded into markets like Canada, which Risher described as “100 percent sort of a street fight against the other guys, because we weren’t really there and then we sort of entered seriously about a year ago.”

The rise of autonomous driving has also introduced a new competitor in the form of Waymo. Lyft has been pursuing its own self-driving strategy, recently partnering with autonomous vehicle companies Mobileye Global and May Mobility to begin deploying driverless cars over the next few years.

Risher said the broader opportunity lies in tapping into the vast market of private car trips. “I tend to be much more focused on how to take advantage of that market share expansion than I am about fighting a particular battle with a particular competitor,” he added.