
When Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) released its most recent quarterly report late on Thursday, the travel booking company said that it had $0.84 in earnings per share (EPS) on $2.32 billion in revenue. Consensus estimates had called for $1.16 in EPS on revenue of $2.36 billion. The fourth quarter of last year reportedly had EPS of $1.17 and $2.09 billion in revenue.
During the quarter, revenue increased 11% year over year. At the same time, gross bookings increased 14%, or $2.4 billion, to $19.8 billion.
Room nights stayed for Brand Expedia, Hotels.com, Expedia Affiliate Network and Egencia combined increased 17% year over year, with HomeAway room nights stayed up 30%.
Expedia’s global Core OTA lodging portfolio increased to over 590,000 properties available as of the end of 2017, up 69% from last year. This includes 150,000 instantly bookable HomeAway listings.
The company did not directly issue guidance of the first quarter, but the consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $0.07 in EPS on $2.47 billion in revenue.
CEO Mark Okerstrom commented:
I am excited to report that Expedia began 2018 firmly on a path toward faster growth and greater share gains in the $1.6 trillion travel industry. Over the past several months, we have made key organizational changes, aligned our company around common objectives and began executing on a new direction aimed at accelerating the geographic expansion of our global travel platform. We are now operating with a clear focus on our highest priority markets, making concentrated investments across the platform including a step function change in our pace of adding new properties to our marketplace. These efforts combined with the impact of our ongoing cloud migration result in expectations for full year 2018 Adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% to 11%.
Shares of Expedia were last seen down about 16% at $103.37 Friday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $151.76 and a 52-week range of $104.01 to $161.00.
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