Booking Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BKNG) stock rose 9.61% (As on August 4, 12:05:43 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company reported strong results for the second quarter, driven by robust leisure travel demand and a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) technology. During the second quarter, room nights booked increased by 9% year over year. Looking at our year-over-year room night growth by region in the second quarter, Asia was up over 40%. Rest of the world was up low double digits. Europe was up a couple of points and the U.S. was down slightly. Gross bookings of $39.7 billion grew 15% year over year and was the highest quarterly gross bookings ever. Airline tickets booked in the second quarter were up about 8% year over year, driven by the continued expansion of Booking.com’s flight offering. The company’s Q2 adjusted EBITDA was about $1.8 billion, an increase of 64% from Q2 of last year. The adjusted EBITDA margins increased by about 7 percentage points versus Q2 2022. Non-GAAP net income was of $1.4 billion in the second quarter, which was up 97% year over year. Q2 ending cash and investment balance of $15.7 million was up versus the Q1 ending balance of $15.3 billion due to the $1.9 billion of debt issuances in May 2023 and the $1.6 billion of free cash flow generated in the second quarter offset by the $3.1 billion in share repurchases the company completed in the quarter.
Further, Booking Holdings’ mobile apps accounted for 48% of second-quarter room nights booked, Fogel said. In addition, the company is implementing AI technology into its offerings, including Penny, a generative AI travel assistant from Priceline, and an AI trip planner on the Booking.com mobile app.
BKNG in the second quarter of FY 23 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $34.89, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of $29.17. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of 27 percent to $5.5 billion in the second quarter of FY 23, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $5.17 billion.
The company expects Q3 gross bookings to grow about seven points faster the room nights on a year-on-year basis due to a few points from continued flight bookings growth and a few points of positive impact from FX movements. The company expects gross bookings to grow slightly over 20%.