Mobile Performance @ Lyft
Article Summary
Lyft was serving 17.1M riders while their Android app launched 15-20% slower than competitors. Time to fix that.
The Lyft mobile team shares how they launched their performance initiative in 2020, starting with one high-impact project to prove the value of investing in speed and stability at scale.
Key Takeaways
- Redefined performance as speed PLUS stability, not just crash rates
- Cut Android app startup time by 21% (3.7s) through strategic optimizations
- iOS improvements were even bigger: 42% faster launch time (3.2s reduction)
- Driver sessions increased 5% after removing blocking network calls
- Used Google Play ranking pressure to justify the investment
Critical Insight
By focusing on their slowest screen (the bootstrap phase), Lyft cut app launch time by over 20% and increased driver engagement by 5%.
