Uber Q4 - Food Delivery Soars

Uber released its numbers last week showing why diversification is important in a business. The ride-hailing giant posted a narrower loss thanks to aggressive cost-cutting and growth in the food delivery operations while ride-hailing was crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Revenues only declined by 14% year-on-year to $11.13 billion, but food delivery soared with total bookings surging more than twofold in the fourth quarter. Uber's net loss narrowed to $6.76 billion for 2020, compared to $8.5 billion a year earlier. Part of this was $1 billion saved in fixed expenses as Uber overhauled its business.

Uber bought Postmates, a small food-delivery company that also delivers groceries and medicines for $2.65 billion in shares. Earlier this month Uber also bought the alcohol delivery company Drizly for $1.1 billion. Both these acquisitions will help Uber compete with market dominant DoorDash as on-demand delivery increases.

Uber's share price is up over 80% since end of October thanks to a big regulatory win in the state of California where it is exempt from reclassifying drivers as employees, and recently winning the bid to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. Investing in Uber has been a wild ride, but the mobility company has proven to be nimble and resilient in a pandemic.