Research archive for BKNG

The analysts at Goldman Sachs recently had some face time with Booking CEO Glenn Fogel. There were two main topics discussed.

The world leader in online travel and related services, Booking Holdings, released its quarterly earnings that beat market expectations for the third time in the past four quarters. Gross travel bookings net of cancellations were up 24% year-on-year to $25.3 billion.

Earlier this week I wrote that we expected Booking.com to report quarterly earnings of about $22 per share. Well, those results were out last night and the number was $22.44 per share. The stock rose 5% after-hours. CEO Glenn Fogel said that the Norwalk, Connecticut company had a "solid start to the summer travel season".

We consider online travel agencies to be an exciting investment opportunity. Thanks mostly to cheaper flights, making both local and international travel more popular and affordable. Culturally, it is becoming normal for both young and older people to visit other countries. We own shares of the largest listed online travel company, Booking.com but there are others like Expedia, Tripadvisor, Ctrip and Trivago. Airbnb is not listed yet.

Did you know that OpenTable belongs to Booking.com? The online travel service giant is another Vestact recommended stock in New York. It is owned by 172 clients, and the aggregate holding is worth $5,8 million.

On Thursday evening Booking Holdings or more commonly known as Booking.com released their Q2 numbers. Even though the numbers were on the low side when compared to what analysts were expecting, the stock still jumped 5%. Makes for a nice change, the last few quarters their numbers were on the high side but the stock dropped anyway. Who knows what will happen to share prices in the short run.

On Wednesday night last week Booking Holdings released their 4th quarter and full year numbers for 2018 . For 2018 the company had gross travel bookings of $92.7bn. That is R1.3 trillion! This was a 14% increase from 2017. Revenues from all these bookings for the company were $14.5bn. That means that 15.6% of booking revenues goes to the company. From that revenue, they made a net income of $4.4bn which showed a 16% increase from 2017 and a 20% increase in earnings per share to $92.59.

Everybody loves to travel, and it's becoming more and more popular all around the world as middle-class income levels rise. Which is why we recommend that you hold shares of the globe's leading online travel agency, Booking Holdings.

The world leader in online travel and related services, Booking Holdings, or previously known as Priceline released their numbers for the second quarter. The shares of the company closed down 5% because management forecasted a disappointing outlook for the third quarter. The third quarter includes Northern Hemisphere summer travel season which is usually the busiest time for the travel giant.

Booking Holdings breached quarterly travel bookings of $25 billion for the first time in its history, an increase of 21% from this time a year ago. This amounted to revenues of $2.9 billion for the 1st quarter of 2018 and gross profits of $2.3 billion, an increase of 25% from the prior year. Equating to $12.34 a share, smashing expectations of $10.

At the end of February, the former Priceline group, now Booking Holdings, released their full year numbers. In years gone by, we would call Priceline the largest company that you have never heard of. With the name change to Booking Holdings, at least you can associate it with their main webpage, Booking.com.

Many people do not know Priceline. The name of the of the company is not synonymous with it's strongest brands. In reality, this is an $80 billion online travel booking behemoth. Who better to explain what they do than the company itself. The following comes from their latest results report.

On Tuesday night after the market close, the world's biggest online travel company, Priceline reported their 2Q numbers. They had revenues of $3 billion up 18%, ahead of expectations and net income of $720 million up 24%, also ahead of expectations. As is the case with any company, especially fast growing tech companies with high expectations, the past period is of less importance the then next quarter. Their guidance of earnings growth of between 4% and 10% was a bit lower than the market expected resulting in the stock selling off 8%. It is still up over 30% for the last 12 months, so where you draw the line in the sand matters.

On Tuesday The Priceline Group Reported Financial Results for 1st Quarter 2017, which were a mixed bag but ultimately lower than the market was expecting. The share closed down 4.5% on the day. Priceline is another one of those huge companies that most people have never heard of. The current market cap is just short of $90 billion, about the size of Ghana and Tanzania combined. That is a large company whose investors have high expectations, currently trading on a P/E of 42 but if all goes according to plan trades on a forward P/E of 21.

Priceline presented numbers for their fourth quarter and full year to end December, close of business Monday. For the full year, the group had gross travel bookings (total dollar value, generally inclusive of all taxes and fees, of all travel services purchased by its customers, net of cancellations) of 68.1 billion Dollars, 23.1 percent better than the prior year. Gross profit was 10.3 billion Dollars, 20 percent better than the year prior. Non-GAAP income grew 23 percent to 3.3 billion Dollars, per diluted share, non-GAAP net income was 65.63 Dollars. Yes, per share, there are only 49 million odd shares (13 million too in treasury, what!!) in issue.