Airbnb continues to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic as the online lodging marketplace surpassed Wall Street estimates on fourth-quarter revenue and earnings.
Earnings per share for the San Francisco-headquartered vacation rental company was 8 cents, surpassing the 3 cent prediction by Refinitiv analysts. Revenue exceeded predictions as well and stood at $1.53 billion, passing up the $1.46 billion projection.
Looking ahead, the company anticipates first-quarter 2022 nights and experiences booked to significantly go past levels from the first quarter of 2019, estimating revenue anywhere from $1.41 billion and $1.48 billion. Analysts have forecast $1.24 billion.
Airbnb nights and experiences booked during the fourth quarter were 73.4 million, missing estimates of 74.96 million and an almost 8 percent decline from the previous quarter. Even so, the number is up 59 percent year-over-year due to the Covid-19 pandemic’s effects on the travel industry.
While the pandemic hit the company hard, it shared in its letter to shareholders that rebounds have been quick in its fourth quarter. In fact, the company saw lower than expected negative impacts of omicron on bookings and cancellations than with the Delta variant. Compared to 2020, December gross nights booked had increased by more than 40 percent.
At the end of January 2022, Airbnb has seen an increase of more than 25 percent of nights booked for the summer travel season when compared to the same time in 2019.
Fourth-quarter revenue totaled $1.5 billion, a year-over-year increase of 78 percent, and the company reported its first Q4 profit of $55 million in net income. The net income may be less than the prior quarter, but it’s a vast improvement compared to the $3.89 billion net loss in Q4 2020.
Airbnb uses gross booking value to track host earnings, service fees, cleaning fees, and taxes, and this number totaled $11.3 billion in Q4, beating Wall Street estimates of $11.08 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Remote work has become a more permanent option for many in the United States, and as such, Airbnb has honed in on a sort of “travel revolution.” In fact, long-term stays of 28 nights or more were the company’s fastest-growing trip length category in the fourth quarter, accounting for 22 percent of gross nights booked. The average trip length increased roughly 15 percent over the past two years. Stays of more than seven days currently represent almost half of all gross nights booked.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, commented on the company’s earnings call by saying, “For the first time ever, millions of people can now live anywhere.” He shared that while he was currently staying in Miami, he lived in different Airbnbs, changing locations every few weeks.
