Booking Holdings Inc. stock rose sharply in extended trading Wednesday as the company’s third-quarter profit more than doubled and its results beat Wall Street expectations across the board.
Booking
BKNG,
shares rose more than 4.5% after hours, after falling nearly 6% in the regular session to close at $1,778.18. Shares of Booking, Expedia Group Inc.
EXPE,
and others in the travel industry sank in regular trading Wednesday after Airbnb Inc.
ABNB,
reported its financial results Tuesday and issued a fourth-quarter outlook that worried investors; Booking shares have dropped in four of the past six sessions.
Booking, whose brands include Priceline, Kayak and Booking.com, reported that gross travel bookings for the third quarter were $32.1 billion, up 36% from the year-ago period. That exceeded analysts’ expectation of $30.48 billion in gross bookings. Room nights booked were 240 million, beating analysts’ expectation of 232.8 million.
“I am encouraged by the strong results we are reporting today, including the highest amount of quarterly revenue and adjusted Ebitda ever for our company,” Chief Executive Glenn Fogel said in a statement.
On the company’s earnings call with analysts, Fogel said he saw improvements in all major regions in August and September compared with July, and that in September, room nights in Asia surpassed 2019 levels for the first time.
“Despite macroeconomic concerns and uncertainty, we believe the sustained level of demand demonstrates consumers’ desire to travel,” Fogel said.
Booking offers listings of both hotels and alternative accommodations, and its CEO said that the company has made progress on alternative accommodations. Room nights for alternative accommodations booked on Booking.com rose 11% compared with the same period in 2019, and represented 30% of total nights booked, Fogel said.
The company reported that third-quarter net income more than doubled to $1.67 billion, or $41.98 a share, compared with $769 million, or $18.60 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for losses from investments and unrecognized tax benefits, earnings were $53.03 a share. Revenue rose to $6 billion from $4.67 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were $2.7 billion, up 26% year over year.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of $49.52 a share on revenue of $5.92 billion.
Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said on the call that he expects fourth-quarter sales to rise year over year, and adjusted Ebitda to be above $1.4 billion. Analysts are forecasting fourth-quarter earnings of $22.79 a share on revenue of $3.9 billion, and Ebitda of $1.22 billion.
Shares of Booking have declined almost 26% so far this year, and are on pace for their worst year since 2008, when they sank almost 36%. By comparison, the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has fallen about 21% year to date.
