San Francisco: Riding on its delivery business, Uber has narrowed its losses in the Q4 2020, registering $3.2 billion in revenue that grew 13 per cent quarter-over-quarter but was down 16 per cent (year-over-year).
Its delivery gross bookings grew a massive 130 per cent to reach $10.05 billion in the fourth quarter — reaching $44 billion annual bookings run-rate — while mobile gross bookings were down 50 per cent to $6.79 billion.
“While 2020 certainly tested our resilience, it also dramatically accelerated our capabilities in local commerce, with our delivery business more than doubling over the year to a nearly $44 billion annual bookings run-rate in December,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
For the entire 2020, Uber’s net losses were $6.77 billion, nearly a 20 per cent improvement from 8.51 billion in losses in 2019.
Uber lost $968 million during the fourth quarter, an improvement from a year ago when losses were $1.1 billion.
Khosrowshahi informed that the company has seen its business accelerate in January to over 150 per cent year-on-year growth, as the delivery continues to provide a natural hedge amid lockdown.
“It’s become clear that the pandemic has increased consumers’ appetite for on-demand delivery of not just food, but all goods, and we take a major step to address this enormous opportunity,” he said.
Uber has acquired Cornershop that opened up grocery delivery for the company, where it rapidly expanded globally.
“With Postmates, we bolstered our local commerce capability through their delivery-as-a-service offering that already counts Walmart, Apple and 7-Eleven as customers. Last week, we announced our agreement to acquire Drizly, which will add the leading online alcohol marketplace to our portfolio,” the Uber CEO told the investors over the earnings call late on Wednesday.
Drizly is growing at 300 per cent year-on-year and is already profitable on an EBITDA basis.
“These new initiatives will remain an investment priority going forward. And in 2021, we expect to invest $200 million to $250 million pre-integration synergies to grow the business by meaningful multiples,” Khosrowshahi noted.