Ride-sharing service Lyft has grown increasingly popular with business travellers, gaining significant market share at the expense of rival Uber, Bloomberg reports.

Travel data firm Certify said that nearly one in five (19 per cent) of rides hailed by business travellers in the US went to Lyft in the first quarter of 2018, up from 10 per cent from the same time last year.

Uber still provides the other 81 per cent of ride-sharing trips to business travellers. However, Uber was hit by a slew of bad press in 2017, some of which led to boycotts of the company.

Meanwhile, Lyft stole market share from Uber, aided by the launch of a black car service and a new partnership with the corporate expense-management firm Concur.

“We will carry this momentum into the rest of 2018 and remain focused on making business travel easy, accessible, and affordable,” said David Baga, Lyft’s chief business officer.

The Certify report found that Uber and Lyft now account for a combined 71 per cent of all ground travel by business travellers, eclipsing rental cars (23 per cent) and taxis (6 per cent).

lyft.com, uber.com