Airbnb Well-Positioned Versus Peers Despite Pandemic Setback, IPO Filing Reveals
Skift Take
Despite the Covid-19 hit, Airbnb stands above its fellow travel rivals due to its ability to continue to book sales during the crisis and turn those stays into cash flow.
Airbnb was one of the fastest growing travel companies in the world before the pandemic hit. It grew gross bookings at an average annualized rate of 36 percent per year over five years. It hit $38 billion of bookings by 2019, up from $8B in 2015. Earning a commission of just under 13 percent, this translated to an impressive take of $4.8 billion in revenue for Airbnb in 2019, according to paperwork filed Monday for Airbnb's IPO, one of the most anticipated public offerings of the year.
But then Covid-19 hit. And Airbnb’s lofty growth was knocked off course. Year-to-date, the company has sold just under $18 billion of gross bookings. That’s down 39 percent from the same time period in 2019 and puts the company on track for a lower level of bookings than it saw in 2018.
Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, Airbnb did manage to post an operating profit of $418 million in the third quarter of 2020. This was partly achieved by a rapidly cutting costs, most notably turning
