Airbnb has just shared its financial results for the last quarter of 2021, running from October to December. If the company had a less prolific period than its third quarter, it still did better than Wall Street’s predictions.
A 78% increase year over year
Airbnb thus recorded a turnover of 1.5 billion dollars, a nice increase of 78% compared to the same period last year. Its net profit of $55 million is less than the $834 million generated in the third quarter of 2021, but much better than the net loss of $3.89 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020.
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There is one point where the firm did not meet analysts’ expectations, on the number of nights and experiences booked during this period. It registered 73.4 million, while experts predicted a higher figure of 74.96 million. This is also a decrease of 8% compared to the previous quarter.
In a letter addressed to its shareholders, the company explained that it had managed to rebound fairly quickly after the pandemic, and also ensures that the impact of the Omicron variant was less harmful than that of the Delta variant. In fact, the number of nights booked in December increased by 40% compared to 2020.
User practices disrupted by the pandemic
The service has also noticed a real upheaval in the practices of its users, directly caused by the changes brought about by the pandemic, such as the much more pronounced use of telework.
As a result, the average length of stay over the past two years has increased by around 15%, with stays longer than seven days now accounting for nearly half of all nights booked. At the same time, extended stays (28 nights or more) continue to be the fastest growing category in terms of length of stay. These extended stays represented 22% of gross nights booked in the fourth quarter, 16% more than in the fourth quarter of 2019, specifies CNBC.
Long stays are skyrocketing on Airbnb. Photography: Karsten Winegeart / Unsplash
The sector is rebounding
Taking all this into account, the company expects bookings in the first quarter of 2022 to greatly exceed those of 2019, i.e. before the emergence of the pandemic. “Despite continued short-term uncertainties, we are seeing evidence of strong pent-up demand: at the end of January 2022, we had more than 25% more nights booked for the summer travel season than at the end of January. same time in 2019,” the company explains.
Airbnb expects revenue for the January-March quarter to be between $1.41 billion and $1.48 billion, higher than the $1.24 billion predicted by analysts. If for the moment, the firm stresses that it is still difficult to project itself over several quarters because of the instability of the health situation, it is obvious that the travel and tourism sector is in full rebound, in particular thanks to the vaccination campaign and the establishment of a pass allowing people to circulate again. Airbnb has just signed its second quarter in a row in the positive.