Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call August 1, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Glenn Fogel - Chief Executive Officer
Ewout Steenbergen - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Mark Mahaney - Evercore
Kevin Kopelman - TD Cowen
Justin Post - Bank of America
Doug Anmuth - JPMorgan
Eric Sheridan - Goldman Sachs
James Lee - Mizuho Securities
Stephen Ju - UBS
Lee Horowitz - Deutsche Bank.
John Colantuoni - Jefferies
Naved Khan - B. Riley Securities

Operator

Welcome to Booking Holdings' Second 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 facts 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 statements 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, 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' second quarter conference call. I'm joined this afternoon by our CFO, Ewout Steenbergen. I am proud to report second quarter results that exceeded the high end of our expectations for room nights and revenue. The upside on revenue, combined with lower-than-expected fixed OpEx growth, helped drive adjusted EBITDA above the high end of our prior guidance range. As expected, the travel market has continued to normalize and we are pleased with the strength of our underlying business.

Moving to our key metrics in the second quarter. Our travelers booked 287 million room nights across our platforms, an increase of 7% year-over-year. Revenue of $5.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1.9 billion, both increased 7% year-over-year. Finally, adjusted earnings per share grew 11% year-over-year, helped by our strong capital return program which reduced our average share count by 7% year-over-year. In line with our expectations, we saw that the booking window expanded less in the second quarter relative to the first quarter which negatively impacted room night growth compared to Q1.