By Preetika Rana

Uber Technologies Inc. posted a narrower annual loss on the back of its food-delivery business and aggressive cost cuts, even as the coronavirus pandemic crushed its core ride-hailing operations.

The San Francisco-based company on Wednesday reported a net loss of $6.76 billion for 2020, compared with a loss of $8.5 billion the year before. While widespread shelter-in-place orders dealt a blow to Uber's rides business, its food-delivery arm soared as the same mandates kept people from going to restaurants. Revenue declined 14% year over year to $11.13 billion.

Uber overhauled its business during the health crisis, cutting about a quarter of its staff and shedding noncore businesses, among other moves, leading it to save $1 billion in fixed expenses last year.

"It has become clear that the pandemic has increased consumers' appetite for on-demand delivery of not just food, but all goods, and we have taken major steps to address this enormous opportunity," Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said on a conference call with analysts.

The company separately doubled down on delivery, buying small food-delivery rival Postmates Inc. last year and ferrying new items such as groceries and medicines.

Uber's delivery bookings jumped more than twofold in the fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period. However, its ride bookings halved over the same period. The downturn was broadly in line with ride-share rival Lyft Inc., whose fourth-quarter revenue declined 44%.

Overall, Uber's fourth-quarter revenue fell 16% to $3.16 billion. The net loss for the period narrowed to $968 million, from $1.09 billion in the year-earlier quarter. The results narrowly missed Wall Street's expectations.

But Uber's adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization beat analysts' projections. Like Lyft, Uber has said it expects to become profitable by that measure by year-end -- a goal executives reiterated on a conference call with analysts Wednesday.

Uber posted an adjusted Ebitda loss of $454 million for the fourth quarter, compared with a year-earlier loss of $615 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had predicted on average a loss of $507 million on that basis in the latest period.

Food delivery, an expensive logistical undertaking, has typically been a drag on Uber's bottom line. But Uber trimmed its adjusted Ebitda loss from delivery to $145 million in the fourth quarter, from $461 million a year earlier, marking the unit's best three-month performance.

Uber's shares are up more than 80% from early November, benefiting from a big regulatory win in the company's home state and, more recently, from Covid-19 vaccine distribution. Shares were down about 4% in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Write to Preetika Rana at preetika.rana@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-10-21 1918ET