Key Takeaways
- Expedia Group shares fell sharply Friday morning, a day after the travel booking platform fell short of first-quarter estimates.
- Revenue and gross bookings came in lower than forecast, and the company’s net loss widened from the same time last year.
- Executives said demand has been weak in the U.S. to start the year, as Expedia also lowered its booking and revenue growth forecasts.
Shares of Expedia Group (EXPE) tumbled 10% in premarket trading Friday, a day after the travel platform’s first-quarter results came in worse than expected and it lowered its full-year outlook amid weak U.S. demand.
The company behind its namesake travel booking platform and others like Vrbo and Hotels.com reported revenue of $2.99 billion and $31.45 billion in total bookings, both up from the same time last year but below what analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected.
Expedia posted adjusted earnings per share of $0.40, up 90% year-over-year and better than Visible Alpha consensus, but its reported net loss per share of $1.56 was more than triple the $0.42 that analysts had forecast.
‘Weaker Than Expected’ US Demand Leads to Lowered Outlook
CEO Ariane Gorin said the company managed to grow bookings and revenue “despite weaker than expected demand in the U.S.” as consumer sentiment has worsened amid tariff-fueled uncertainty. Gorin added on the earnings call that travel trends continued to be soft through April, and said more European customers appear to be traveling to other locales like Latin America rather than the U.S., according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.
CFO Scott Schenkel said Expedia projects 2% to 4% bookings growth and 3% to 5% revenue growth in the second quarter, but the company trimmed its full-year forecast for both metrics to 2% to 4% growth from the 4% to 6% rate they laid out in last quarter’s earnings call.
Shares entered the day down more than 9% since the start of the year.
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