Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL) stock rose 2.13% (As on June 26, 12:10:57 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company beat analysts’ estimates and also increased its full-year guidance joining the large other cruise companies, Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, based on strong pricing and booking increasing their forecasts for 2024 and beyond. The company continues to seek enhancements to its operations recently completing the transfer of the third ship from its Costa brand to Carnival Cruise Line, which they said is now the highest-returning brand in the company’s global portfolio. With a strategy that includes two more mega-ship newbuilds for Carnival Cruise Line and consolidation of two ships from the P&O Australia brand, they noted Carnival Cruise Line will increase as a percentage of the corporation’s portfolio from 29 percent as of 2019 to 37 percent in 2028. Other steps included the delivery of the Queen Anne, the first new cruise ship built for the Cunard brand in 14 years. The corporation is slowly moving back into newbuilds with the two orders for Carnival Cruise Line but expects a slow pace at construction.
Further, Carnival Corporation ended the quarter with an all-time high of $8.3 billion for total customer deposits. They noted this was up by $1.1 billion from the May 2023 record of $7.2 billion and shows strong forward momentum carrying into 2025. They reported for the first time that 2025 had record booking volumes saying while it is early they already have an even higher cumulative advanced booking position for the full year 2025 than in 2024 both at price and occupancy. During the second quarter, the company generated cash from operations of $2 billion and free cash flow of $1.3 billion. CCL prepaid $1.6 billion of secured term loan facilities. It has also repriced approximately $2.75 billion of the same secured term loan facilities.
CCL in the second quarter of FY 24 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of 11 cents, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted loss per share of 2 cents. The company had reported the adjusted revenue growth of $5.78 billion in the second quarter of FY 24, beating the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $5.68 billion.
The increased guidance added $275 million to adjusted net income now projected at approximately $1.55 billion. They are expecting net yields up better than 10 percent compared to 2023 and a nearly 40 percent improvement to EBITDA of approximately $5.83 billion for the year.