BKNG - Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-05-02 20:19:02 ET
Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
May 02, 2024, 16:30 PM ET
Company Participants
Glenn Fogel - Chief Executive Officer
Ewout Steenbergen - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Kevin Kopelman - TD Cowen
Mark Mahaney - Evercore
Justin Post - Bank of America
Doug Anmuth - JPMorgan
Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley
James Lee - Mizuho Securities
Stephen Ju - UBS
Lee Horowitz - Deutsche Bank.
John Colantuoni - Jefferies
Ronald Josey - Citi
Jed Kelly - Oppenheimer
Tom White - D.A. Davidson
Presentation
Operator
Welcome to Booking Holdings First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. Booking Holdings would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict.
Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed, implied or forecasted in any such forward-looking statements. Expressions of future goals or expectations and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements. For a list of factors that could cause Booking Holdings’ actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements please refer to the safe harbor statement at the end of Booking Holdings’ earnings press release as well as Booking Holdings’ most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Unless required by law, Booking Holdings undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A copy of Booking Holdings’ earnings press release, together with an accompanying financial and statistical supplement, is available in the For Investors section of Booking Holdings’ website at www.bookingholdings.com.
And now I’d like to introduce Booking Holdings speakers for this afternoon, Glenn Fogel and Ewout Steenbergen. Go ahead, gentlemen.
Glenn Fogel
Thank you, and welcome to Booking Holdings' first quarter conference call. I'm joined this afternoon by our CFO, Ewout Steenbergen. I am pleased to report a strong start to 2024. Our travelers booked nearly 300 million room nights across our platforms in the first quarter, which exceeded our expectations and grew 9% year-over-year. First quarter revenue of $4.4 billion grew 17% year-over-year. An adjusted EBITDA of about $900 million increased 53% year-over-year. Both revenue and adjusted EBITDA were ahead of our first quarter expectations.
Finally, adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter grew 76% year-over-year, helped by improved profit levels as well as our strong capital return program, which reduced our average share count by 9% versus the first quarter last year. We continue to see resiliency in global leisure travel demand, including healthy growth for travel on the books that's scheduled to take place during our peak summer travel season. Although a high percentage of these bookings are cancelable, and what is on the books today represents a modest percentage of the expected total summer bookings....
Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript