Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Let's stick with earnings more broadly and shares a right hailing company. Well, Lift, we're currently up two point one percent. That's called it after the company reported first called a profit. Actually, so there's some anxiety among Wall Street about the expectations, but it was all being ramped up by spending on international expansion. Maybe that's what was hitting in the near term, the
preprofitability metrics. You've got to talk to the person who knows all Lift CEO, David Risher. Look, we've had a volatile trading day for Lift. There was some pressure as people worried about, well, the amount that you're spending to grow, but you're managing to push back on that. You see to investor base that this is the right use of capital.
I really think it is. Yeah. I mean, look, we had a record quarter, which is always wonderful, almost five billion in bookings. You bit up thirty seven percent a year on year, one point one billion dollars of free cash flow. So that's great. So when you're in a position like that, that allows you to grow and grow even more. And as you noted, we've done some international acquisation just in fact one announced a couple of days
ago GET in the UK. Look, I think it's a great time to be franking in the rideshare business because we're a really important part of a lot of people's lives, and we're.
Growing like a weed, growing like a weed. Mandy blue Bag intelligent sort of saying that supply growth for lift perhaps is likely to trail some larger peers. I mean, I talked to us about the adoption rate, the adoption rate of your offerings, but the adoption rate in particular of autonomous vehicles that you're starting to dabble in.
Yeah. So look, I think if you zoom wagh in, you can always find little things, right. So we delivered about two hundred and thirty seven million rides this last quarter. That's a lot of rides, a lot of commuting rides, a lot of rides to the airport and so forth. Now, the quarter started off a little bit slow. There's some really intense storms, particularly in New York City where you live. As you know, that brought ride share and beg share to sort of zero. So that was an early kind
of headwind. But look, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Super Bowl, these were all all time highs, and then we had our highest ride month ever in March. So I think that there's a lot of reason to believe that there's still a huge, huge amount of growth here. And then, as you say, autonomous vehicles, that's a great product and that's going to be one of the next big kind of growth vectors up mart Mahine.
Over a Evercore really liking the fact that you've got, you know, a record six straight quarter in terms of active riders. But I think what he's liking to see is maybe consumer incentives to just moderate a little bit. Are you being able to do that.
David, Yeah, we are. We've gotten a lot of you know, we think of it is a sort of leverage off of consumer incentives. And I'll tell you a particular thing that I'm starting to see more. I think it is rewards maxing. Okay, so, oh no, you've got right there, you go, there, you go. Be careful about where we're going to go with this one. So anyway, no, but look, we've got to deal with United right, which allows people to both earn points and also spend points on left.
We have a deal with Hilton, we have an arrangement with alask Airlines. We have an arrangement with door Dash are super super important program there that just expanded to Canada. And so what we're seeing people do is they're you know, they're they're taking lift rides, they're earning points and they're spending them elsewhere or they're even spending them back on
our platform. And Yeah, I think it's going to be a thing, and I think it's one of the reasons why we're saying high margins sort of like black and luxury rides rise. Even with some consumer concerns, still this rewards maxing thing, I think is working for people.
Rewards maxing, of course, is a play on all the maxing that we have with looks maxing, all the tons of phrase that gen Z use. Is it genders? I mean, I mean how much you see how much you're seeing the idea of different age groups responding to your new offerings, because in many ways, I see the more premium offerings coming to an older cohort, a more obviously a wealthier cohort, in many ways a corporate cohort.
You know, I think that's something that's changing over time. I think, you know, back when I was you know, early in my career. You know, you didn't have an amex, you know, platinum card or Chase Sapphire reserve card until you're you know, old like me now. But no, it turns out actually a lot of kids, a lot of sort of gen y gen z folks, are early in that ecosystem because they realize that there's a lot of value to be unlocked if they kind of play the game.
And I think a lot of them think of it a bit of as almost to play in the game, Like I, how can I do this rewards maximum thing to be able to afford a lift black even when I'm in my twenties.
Savvy is what they are, and I'm interested, David, and how savvy you are about the landscape for M and A? Right now you've made acquisitions. This is where you've been spending your money. Is there more to come?
You know, never say never about these things. It's always, you know, a fool's game to predict M and A. But I will say that it's it's a part of our strategy. Now. We were not a very inquisitive company for a long time, but now that we've got you know, the fastest pickup times, great pricing, great service levels all around. We're really thinking of bringing that abroad, and that's really where our M and A focus has been is overseas.
Any warries about the consumer right now?
No, No, And I know that sounds glib. Of course, people are feeling some pain. Our drivers feel a lot of pain at the pump, and so that's why we were the first to get out there with a nice cash back program at the pump saves about a dollar a gallon. So you the reasons, I think, of course, are to be concerned. But when we look at the data, you know, we're we're not seeing that play out.
It's been a week where I feel that you haven't actually mentioned AI yet much. I mean, autonomous vehicles is inherently AI. How much there were your workforce using it? How much your workforce responding to having to use it? And is there any stretch at which point you are able to reduce your headcount or hiring on the back of it.
You know, I love this question, and I think it's really important for people to sort of get their arms around this. Absolutely. Something like eighty six percent now of our developers, our software engineers are using actively, like every single day, using AI to write code for them. We're also using it in customer care, We're using it all over the place. But I think there's a way of thinking about it which is not so much about cost reduction,
but about velocity increase and capacity building. You know, our imaginations are huge, and we're a customer obsessed company, so we have no shortage of great ideas to innovate on behalf of customers. I think that's really where AI is going to give us a big edge. Not so much on this sort I mean cost. We can maybe save a little bit money, but there's so much more value if we can figure out new great ways for riders and drivers to use our platform.
Is it a more competitive backdrop right now? To say one more time, is it a more competitive backdrop right now?
Well, it is, you know, but only in the following sense. You know. Remember there one hundred and sixty billion rides that people take in their private car every single year, and I think that's ultimately going to be the real
competition for us. Look, it's fifty thousand dollars to buy a car eight hundred bucks a month plus insurance, plus gas, plus maintenance, whereas Lyft is you know, twenty bucks a ride, so in a funny way, I think the competition is going to shift a little away from the other guys and a little bit more towards what are good ways for you to spend your money and how can you live your best life? And rewards Max and rewards Max exactly. I'm glad you picked up on that