Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CCL) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call September 29, 2023 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Josh Weinstein - President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Climate Officer
David Bernstein - Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer
Beth Roberts - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations
Conference Call Participants
Steven Wieczynski - Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets
Patrick Scholes - Truist Securities
Brandt Montour - Barclays Bank PLC
Robin Farley - UBS
David Katz - Jefferies LLC
Daniel Politzer - Wells Fargo Securities
Jaime Katz - Morningstar, Inc.
Assia Georgieva - Infinity Research
Matthew Boss - JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Conor Cunningham - Melius Research LLC
Christopher Stathoulopoulos - Susquehanna Financial Group
Josh Weinstein
Good morning. This is Josh Weinstein. Welcome to our Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. I'm joined today by our Chair, Micky Arison; our Chief Financial Officer, David Bernstein; and our Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Beth Roberts. Before I begin, please note that some of our remarks on this call will be forward-looking. Therefore, I'll refer you to the cautionary statement in today's press release.
Another quarter and another set of milestones and records. This quarter, we reached net income well in excess of $1 billion and EBITDA well over $2 billion. We also achieved revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income that all exceeded the high-end of our June guidance range with constant currency adjusted cruise costs in line with expectations.
Furthermore, customer deposits and booking volumes, both important forward indicators, hit record levels for the third quarter. Thanks to the efforts of our amazing team, ship and shore, we exceeded the midpoint of our adjusted net income guidance by $175 million this quarter. The outperformance was driven by strength in demand for our brands, with both our North American and European segments equally outperforming expectations. The result was yields that were higher than anticipated that exceeded 2019's strong levels and that reached an all-time high.
On the European front, occupancy came in better than anticipated for Costa and AIDA, with both brands hitting 119% occupancy in August. Not to be outdone, P&O Cruises achieved its highest occupancy in over a decade, despite a 40% capacity increase from 2019. And as for pricing, our third quarter per diems were 5 points higher than 2019, also hitting record levels and more than overcoming the absence of St. Petersburg, which was among our highest-yielding itineraries and weighted to the third quarter.