The valuation of Uber is more difficult than that of Lyft

Uber Technologies is not exactly Lyft, said Aswath Damodaran, a professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University, but the market will value them in relation to each other.

The two carpool companies make their debut on the equity markets. Lyft became public at the end of last month and Uber filed its prospectus last week. But Uber is more complicated than its competitor, which makes it more difficult to value the company before its IPO and its interpretation.

This is because it is not just a carpool company and it also earns revenue from its food delivery service, Uber Eats, as well as smaller bets such as Uber Freight, said Damodaran. In addition, Uber's ambitions were more global than those of Lyft, which continued to focus on the United States and Canada. Uber is also complicated because of the major restructuring it's carried out in the three years leading up to its IPO. In fact, it ended cash-generating investments in China, South-East Asia and Russia, leaving the company with losses amounting to billions.

But the "good news" is when Damodaran isolated the statistics of the areas in which Uber was operating. He found that gross billings, net revenues, ridership and rides all increased "strongly" over the last three years.

Damodaran, author of several books on the valuation and financing of companies, has valued $ 61.7 billion after its badysis, or $ 54 per share, by adding the badets of Uber. In another badysis of the company based on its endorsements, it calculated a valuation of $ 58.6 billion, or $ 51 per share. But, he added, the overall value can range from about $ 80 billion, ranging from $ 47 billion to $ 124 billion, depending on the measure used.

Regardless of how investors come to their valuations, the reality is that "Uber will be charged by the market, and that it will be compared to Lyft," he said.

What is true is that investors have had difficulties, even with respect to Lyft. After Lyft reached the top of its IPO range and saw a 21% rise in its early days, it fell short of its IPO price after a few days and has been struggling ever since. Shares of the carpool company are down an additional 6% this Monday.