Booking Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BKNG) stock rose 5.14% (As on February 21, 11:22:25 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company announced its fourth-quarter financial results, which exceeded expectations due to robust international travel demand, particularly in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Room nights booked in the period grew 13% to 261 million, exceeding Wall Street’s estimates and its own guidance range of 6% to 8% growth. Gross travel bookings, which include taxes and fees, were $37.2 billion, compared with a projection of $34.5 billion. Looking at the room nights growth by region. In the fourth quarter, Europe was up low double-digits, Asia was up mid-teens. Rest of World was up about 20%, and the US was up about 10%. The mobile app mix of the total fourth quarter room nights was in the mid-50% range, which was up from the low50% range in 2023. In the other travel verticals, about 14 million airline tickets were booked across the platforms in the fourth quarter. Airline ticket growth in the fourth quarter was 52%, driven by the continued growth of the flight offerings at Booking.com and Agoda, and accelerated from the 39% growth in the third quarter

BKNG in the fourth quarter of FY 24 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $41.55, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $36.03, according to LSEG data. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of 14 percent to $5.47 billion in the fourth quarter of FY 24, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $5.19 billion. Adjusted EBITDA of $1.8 billion was 26% higher than the fourth quarter of 2023 and 12% above the high end of the prior guidance range driven by revenue outperformance and lower-than-expected adjusted fixed OpEx. Revenue as a percentage of gross bookings of 14.7% was lower than expected due to impacts from timing and a higher mix of flight bookings. The fourth quarter ending cash and investments balance of $16.7 billion, was up versus the third quarter ending balance of $16.3 billion

In addition, the company authorized a share buyback program of as much as an additional $20 billion. The company repurchased $1.1 billion of stock under the authorized stock repurchase program in the fourth quarter of 2024, and the total remaining stock repurchase authorization was $7.7 billion as of December 31, 2024. It also issued a cash dividend of $9.60 per share, payable on March 31.