Lyft's revenue skyrocketed after #DeleteUber took off

The controversial #DeleteUber campaign significantly bolstered its primary competitor's revenue in early 2017, reports Fast Company.
The campaign, which stemmed from Uber offering rides while taxis boycotted service in New York to protest President Trump's immigration ban, also resulted in Lyft surpassing Uber in the number of downloads it received from the app store. Uber hit a rough patch in terms of publicity in early 2017, with many decrying former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick for his decision to join Trump's economic advisory council. It was also during this timeframe that a video surfaced of Kalanick fighting with his own Uber driver.
While the filing doesn't specifically mention Uber, it says revenues grew "as our brand and values continued to resonate with riders and they increased their usage of Lyft instead of competing offerings."
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The revenue revelation came out in Lyft's Friday IPO filing, which marks the first public filing from a U.S. ride-sharing company, per CNBC. In its prospectus, Lyft also revealed that the company's revenue more than tripled from 2016 to 2017 and doubled from 2017 to 2018, coming out to $2.2 billion.
Lyft's filing is expected to be the first of many from private tech companies looking to go public. Uber is expected to file its own IPO in the coming weeks, reports CNBC.
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Marianne is The Week’s Social Media Editor. She is a native Tennessean and recent graduate of Ohio University, where she studied journalism and political science. Marianne has previously written for The Daily Beast, The Crime Report, and The Moroccan Times.
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