Snapp and Lyft, side by side: one country against eleven

On 2 October 2026 Tabaghe 16, the Persian-language podcast hosted by Soheil Alavi, published episode 210 with Negar Saberian, whom the episode listing describes as a scientist and senior vice president at Lyft. It is a fair occasion to set Iran’s largest ride-hailing service beside Lyft on every measure where both companies publish a number.

Our earlier piece today, Snapp carried 1.83 times Lyft’s trips. Then its growth stalled., set out Snapp’s five-year trip series and its slowdown. This one is wider. It takes the latest year for each company, Snapp’s year to 20 March 2026 against Lyft’s calendar 2025, and uses only measures where both sides are on the record. Snapp’s figures come from its own reports; Lyft’s from its results, its annual report and its own posts. Where a value is our arithmetic, we say so and show it.

Where Snapp is larger

Trips. Snapp’s ride-hailing service carried 1,525,847,533 trips in the year to 20 March 2026. The company does not print that figure; Tehran Index derives it from two cumulative totals it does print (7,960,133,547 less 4,920,441,624, less the 1,513,844,390 of the year before). Lyft reported 945.5 million rides for 2025. Snapp’s count is 1.61 times Lyft’s.

Daily volume. Over a 365-day year that is about 4.18 million trips on an average day for Snapp, against about 2.59 million rides for Lyft.

Use per account. Snapp carried 40.3 trips per active passenger account (1,525,847,533 / 37,874,564). Lyft carried 18.4 rides per annual rider (945.5 million / 51.3 million). Snapp’s figure is 2.2 times Lyft’s, the clearest difference in the table, though it divides by accounts and not by people.

Drivers. Snapp had 3,919,000 active driver accounts in the year, out of 8,592,169 registered since launch. Lyft says over 1 million drivers earned on its platform in 2025. That is a floor, not a count, so Snapp’s figure is at most 3.9 times Lyft’s. Per driver, no conclusion follows: Lyft’s numbers give only a ceiling of 946 rides per driver (945.5 million / 1 million), and Snapp’s 389 trips per active driver account sits below it.

Trips per employee. Snapp Khodro, the group’s ride-hailing company, had 2,468 people by the group’s own announcement. Lyft had 3,913 full-time employees worldwide at 31 December 2025. That is roughly 618,000 trips per Snapp Khodro employee against roughly 242,000 per Lyft employee. Read it as an order of magnitude only: Snapp does not say whether its count is full-time, Lyft’s count spans more businesses than rideshare, and neither discloses what it outsources.

Where Lyft is larger

Riders. Lyft reported 51.3 million annual riders in 2025, against 37,874,564 active Snapp passenger accounts, 1.35 times. One person can hold more than one Snapp account, so the number of people behind Snapp’s figure is unknown and can only be equal or smaller.

Footprint. On completing its FREENOW acquisition on 31 July 2025, Lyft said it operates rideshare and taxi services in 11 countries and nearly 1,000 cities, FREENOW alone bringing 180 cities in nine European countries. Snapp’s car service was active in 751 cities and towns by the end of its year, all in one country. Snapp counts small towns; the two city definitions are not known to match.

Growth. Lyft’s rides grew 14 percent in 2025 and its annual riders 16.6 percent (44 million to 51.3 million). Snapp’s derived trip count grew 0.8 percent and its active passenger accounts 6.2 percent (35,657,967 to 37,874,564). Five months of FREENOW sit inside Lyft’s 2025 figures, a contribution we have not isolated. Why Snapp’s growth slowed is the subject of the earlier piece.

What does not compare

Accounts are not people. Every Snapp passenger and driver figure counts accounts. Lyft’s results do not define annual riders.

The years are offset. Snapp’s year runs from 21 March 2025 to 20 March 2026, about 11 weeks behind Lyft’s calendar year. The two overlap for a little over nine months.

The rides are not all rides in cars. Lyft’s own definition counts “rideshare and bike and scooter rides”, and its 2025 count includes FREENOW from the end of July.

Snapp’s count may include deliveries. The glossary of Snapp’s annual report says its car-service trip count includes the Snapp Box delivery services offered inside it. The reports do not say how many.

This piece compares volumes only. Neither company’s fares or revenue appear, and none is estimated.

For buyers

The free Snapp dossier carries the company’s record with each source passage. Tehran Index also sells a full company dossier for USD 3,000, and a registry check of who legally owns and runs an Iranian company for USD 750.

Cite as: Tehran Index, “Snapp and Lyft, side by side: one country against eleven”, 7 October 2026. Snapp figures from the company’s own reports as recorded in the Tehran Index facts layer; the trip count for the year to 20 March 2026 derived by Tehran Index from two printed cumulative totals. tehranindex.com