Airbnb reports continued deceleration in nights and experiences booked

Airbnb shares slid as much as 6% in extended trading Thursday after the short-term home-rental company reported a smaller sum of nights and experiences booked in the second quarter than analysts had projected.

Here’s how the company did:

• Earnings: 98 cents per share, vs. 78 cents per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv
• Revenue: $2.48 billion, vs. $2.42 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv

Airbnb’s revenue grew 18% year over year in the quarter, according to a statement. Net income reached $650 million, compared with about $379 million, or 56 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

The company reported $19.1 billion in gross booking value for the quarter. That was up 12% from the second quarter of last year and above the $18.99 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

Airbnb said it had 115.1 million nights and experiences booked during the quarter, up almost 11%, but less than the 117.6 million StreetAccount consensus. Nights and experiences booked increased 19% in the first quarter.

In a letter to shareholders, Airbnb said the nights and experiences booked number was up against a tough comparison.

“We saw an improvement in year-over-year Nights and Experiences Booked growth during the quarter from 10% in April to 15% in June,” the company said. “In particular, we were encouraged by the acceleration in year-over-year nights in North America throughout the quarter, and the recovery in EMEA in June following challenging holiday comparisons in May.”

Gross booking value per night, at $166.01, was up 1% year over year.

With respect to guidance, Airbnb called for $3.3 billion to $3.4 billion in third-quarter revenue, or 14% to 18% growth. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had been looking for $3.22 billion. Management called for a “modest” sequential acceleration in nights and experiences booked.

Airbnb still sees plenty of service opportunities that could add to revenue growth, CEO Brian Chesky told analysts on a conference call. He said there are plenty of services people can buy when they stay in hotels and resorts that Airbnb has yet to make available to its guests.

He said an advertising platform is “obviously” one thing Airbnb could add and that the company could also start matching available hosts with people with homes who lack the time to host.

Airbnb has said it wants to refine its service using OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model, a form of artificial-intelligence software that can compose realistic text or summarize information in response to human input. On Thursday call Chesky said he would like to use this technology to make the company’s customer-service department more effective. It’s possible that some future support requests won’t require help from agents, he said.

During the quarter Airbnb introduced Rooms in an effort to play up the appeal of affordable private bedrooms to rent out, at $67 per night on average.

Notwithstanding the after-hours move, Airbnb shares have risen about 64% so far this year, outperforming the S&P 500 stock index, which is up 17% over the same period.