Only a few months after it began a trial run for its electric scooters in downtown Phoenix, Lime is pulling out of Arizona — and 11 other markets around the world — as the financially strapped company looks to reach profitability.
Other than pulling its scooters out of Phoenix and Scottsdale, the San Francisco-based scooter company is exiting Atlanta, San Diego and San Antonio as well as eight international markets in Linz, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Rio de Janerio, Sao Paulo and Puerto Vallarta.
In an email response to the Business Journal, a Lime spokesperson sent out the following statement:
“As part of our path to profitability, Lime has made the difficult decision to exit Arizona and focus our resources on markets that allow us to meet our ambitious goals for 2020. We’re grateful to our team members, riders, Juicers and communities who supported us throughout this journey. We appreciate our partnerships in Arizona and remain hopeful we can reintroduce Lime back into the community when the time is right.”
Lime has pulled out of markets in the past while it enters new ones. Meanwhile, some of Lime’s competitors in the e-scooter space, such as Bird and Lyft, have also laid off workers during the past year.
Lime posted the notice Thursday about the decision to pull out of the 12 markets in a blog post on its website, saying it was leaving those markets because they had not performed as well as other cities.
“These market closures have an effect not just on riders, but on our whole Lime community. To our full-time and temporary employees and our Juicers, many of whom have been with us every step of the way – thank you. We know that this decision impacts your lives and families and we’re grateful for your role in helping us make Lime what it is today,” the blog post said.
The e-scooter trial in Phoenix began last September. The scooters have to be returned to specific drop-off points.
The reaction to e-scooters in the Valley has been mixed. Arizona State University has banned them on its Tempe campus, and Lime pulled its scooters out of Tempe in 2019 because of newly enacted regulations and fees.
Click here to read Lime’s full blog post.
