A collapse in tourism to cities was partly offset at the end of last year by more people travelling to rural destinations, said Airbnb, as it boasted of its “resilience” in its first earnings as a public company.
In the final three months of 2020, “more guests stayed in Sicily than in Florence and Venice combined, and more in Devon than in Oxford and Cambridge combined,” said Brian Chesky, the home rental platform’s chief executive, in a letter to shareholders.
As a result, he said revenues in the fourth quarter were $859m, comfortably higher than analysts’ expectations of $747m, but down 22 per cent on the same quarter in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Airbnb, which listed on the public markets last December, also saw its revenues fall less steeply than its rivals, Expedia and Booking.com, which saw falls of 67 per cent and 63 per cent respectively in the same period.
The company’s share price, which had fallen 9pc ahead of the earnings, rallied by more than 2.5pc in pre-market trading on Friday.
Analysts have pointed to a trend for people staying for longer, in more remote locations, as a boon for Airbnb, with users booking stays in their home countries and taking out space for homeworking.
Nevertheless, Airbnb posted a heavy loss for the quarter, of $3.9bn, mostly because of the costs of its long-awaited market debut.
Stock-based compensation was responsible for $2.9bn of the loss, and Airbnb recorded more than $800m in adjustments to warrants that it issued to its debtholders, as it sought emergency fundraising at the start of the pandemic, and which have since risen in value along with its stock price.
Adjusting for those expenses — and removing income tax, depreciation, and amortisation — Airbnb said its adjusted Ebitda loss for the quarter was $25m. Analysts had expected a loss of $122m. Airbnb’s net losses for the entire year ran to $4.6bn.
Airbnb said its revenues for the whole of 2020 had only fallen 30 per cent, year-on-year, despite the impact of the pandemic. It said at the depth of the pandemic it had expected at least a 50 per cent fall.
But it declined to forecast how 2021 will play out, citing uncertainty around vaccination rollout.
“It is too early to predict overall recovery trends for the travel industry and their impact on our business,” it wrote in the filing. “We have been encouraged by our continued resilience and recovery, and are optimistic about the upcoming travel rebound.”
In its shareholder letter, Airbnb said it would invest in recruiting more hosts to the platform for when demand picks up. During the pandemic, the company apologised to angry hosts after forcing them to provide full refunds for Covid-19-related cancellations.
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