Uber is still king in every major US city – but Lyft is slowly carving out a small slice of the ride-hailing market.
That’s according to a new report from 7Park Data, which measured ride-hailing companies’ market share and growth nationwide, as well as passenger behavior.
The results showed that Lyft isn’t close to catching up to Uber just yet. The city with the tightest competition is Denver, where Uber has 62% of the market share and Lyft has 38%. In Houston, however, Uber is crushing Lyft: Uber has 97% of the market share compared to Lyft’s 3%.
But Lyft is making progress. The company told Forbes in May that its market share has grown 70% in the last year in the top 20 cities nationwide, and that seven of those cities are doing 500,000 rides each month. And 7Park’s data shows that since January 2014, there’s an upward trend of Uber riders choosing to use Lyft, too – the percentage of riders choosing both more than doubled between January 2014 and August 2016.
Lyft’s future still remains uncertain after rumors swirled over the summer saying the company was for sale. Reports claimed Lyft had been approached by General Motors with an offer to buy the company, which Lyft deemed too low, and that Lyft also had talks with six different companies, including Amazon, Uber, and Google, yet still failed to find a buyer. Lyft president John Zimmer maintains the company is absolutely not for sale.