Booking Holdings (BKNG) Delivered Another Disappointing Quarter

Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) is a leading player in the online travel industry, operating famous sites such as Booking.com, Agoda.com, Kayak.com, among few others. Some products and services across its websites overlap but each site has a unique user base. The company primarily generates revenue from booking commissions and advertisements across its websites.

The company has been struggling to generate revenue due to travel restrictions in place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year. The global health crisis has also been hurting BKNG’s financial performance. The company once again announced weak financial results for the first quarter on Wednesday.

Booking Holdings reported an adjusted loss of $5.26 per share for the three months ended March 31, as compared to adjusted earnings of $3.77 per share in the same period of 2020. Analysts on average were looking for a loss of $5.97 per share.

Revenue for the quarter declined 50 percent on a year-over-year basis to $1.1 billion, as the pandemic continue to weigh on sales. The figure also fell short of analysts’ average estimate of $1.16 billion. Booking Holdings stock slipped nearly 2 percent in the mid-day trading Thursday following the disappointing quarterly results.

Commenting on the quarter, CEO Glenn Fogel said in a statement, “We saw encouraging signs of improving booking trends in the first quarter that continued into April with notable strength in the U.S. While we expect there will be continued volatility in the recovery of global travel demand, our teams across Booking Holdings will continue their hard work to strengthen the positioning of our company and execute against our key strategic priorities.”