Airbnb's Record Shows the Third Quarter Is the Charm
Skift Take
While you have to toss out Covid-ravaged 2020 as any kind of a barometer for a company's trajectory, during the last two-and-a-half years, Airbnb has only made a profit during its third quarters. If remote working becomes entrenched in coming years, then that can indeed help with Airbnb's seasonality issues.
Looking back over the last two-and-a-half years, third quarter financial reporting periods, which include the peak summer travel months of July, August and September, have been the company's only profitable ones — and Airbnb expects a blockbuster third quarter of 2021.
Since 2019, Airbnb has posted net losses every quarter with the exception of the third quarter of 2019, when it recorded net income of $267 million, and the third quarter of 2020, when the company was $219 million in the black on the basis of generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP.
While recording net losses of $1.2 billion in 2021's first quarter, which was impacted by paying
