When it comes to the race between Uber vs. Lyft, it appears that Uber continues to reign as the more popular ride-hailing company among users.
Just think about how many of your own friends and family use the app or your own habits when requesting a ride. However, Uber being the reigning champ is not just speculation.
According to new statistics from SurveyMonkey Intelligence, Uber continues to dominate Lyft as users' go-to app when needing a ride.
One of the ways to determine which service is more successful is by looking at the amount of downloads each company's app receives. SurveyMonkey found that Uber is hands-down the clear winner here, having 3.82 million app downloads vs. 1.26 million Lyft app downloads in the United States in July. That means Uber had three times as many downloads for its app compared with Lyft in the country at the time.
It isn't enough to prove that users hail more rides from Uber than Lyft just by the amount of downloads. However, looking at the amount of monthly active users can further reveal how many people are actually using the app. According to the statistics, Uber has 15.8 million monthly active users in the United States compared with only 3.6 million Lyft active users as of July 31 of this year.
With four times more people using Uber, it's safe to say it's the more popular ride-hailing app — especially since 8.4 percent of all smartphone owners used Uber at least once in July.
What's more is that Uber has had an increasing average month-to-month growth rate of 6.6 percent of monthly active users over the last three months compared with Lyft's negative growth rate of -2 percent.
The data also reveals that, once a person starts using Uber, they continue to do so when looking to catch a cab.
SurveyMonkey found that Uber users are more loyal to the company compared with Lyft users. This is interesting because many users might want to shop around among a few apps to see which has the best price and availability.
However, Uber users are clearly loyal to the brand. Only 11 percent of Uber users also used Lyft in July, whereas 71 percent of Lyft users also used Uber. This translates to 89 percent of Uber riders in the United States being brand-loyal, while only 29 percent of Lyft riders are brand-loyal.
There are a few reasons why Uber users are more loyal than Lyft users. This includes the fact that Uber has more users and is more widely available across the United States than Lyft. Brand awareness and perception also plays a role, with Uber having more funding invested into its company ($15 billion as of June 2016, to be exact) than Lyft.
Uber users were also found to have higher incomes than Lyft users, which could mean that they have the extra funds to take an Uber more often than Lyft users, who only hail a ride when necessary.
As both companies continue to expand, for now, Uber is the clear winner in the car service wars.
