BKNG Booking Holdings Inc

   By Dave Sebastian 
 

Booking Holdings Inc. said its gross travel bookings for the second quarter fell 91% to $2.3 billion as it missed out on the usually lucrative summer season due to the decimation in global travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading the company to post an adjusted loss.

The online-travel agency, which operates sites like Booking.com, Kayak and OpenTable, on Thursday posted adjusted losses of $10.81 a share, narrower than the $11.54 a share analysts polled by FactSet had expected.

Including gains on marketable securities of $835 million, net income was $122 million, or $2.97 a share, compared with $979 million, or $22.62 a share, in the comparable quarter last year.

Revenue fell 84% to $630 million from the year-ago period. Analysts were targeting $561.7 million.

"We faced a challenging second quarter and continue to face challenges due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on travel demand, Chief Executive Glenn Fogel said. "However, we have witnessed improvement in booking trends since April, which is encouraging."

Room nights booked, a measure of occupancy, fell 87%.

Agency revenue, or that derived from travel-reservation commissions, fell to $357 million from $2.61 billion. Advertising and other revenues fell to $28 million from $284 million. Merchant revenue, or that derived from travel-related transactions whose payments Booking Holdings facilitated, declined to $245 million from $959 million.

The loss on adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was $376 million, compared with an adjusted Ebitda of $1.4 billion in the prior year.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based company earlier this week said it plans to cut up to a quarter of Booking.com's global workforce, or roughly more than 4,000 people, as it seeks to restructure itself.

Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 06, 2020 16:37 ET (20:37 GMT)

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