Booking Holdings reports better than expected sales

Booking Holdings, the parent company of Booking.com, has reported $18 billion in sales –  higher than it had expected sales in Q4 of 2017. In its first results since changing its name from Priceline Group, the online travel company – … Continue reading →

Booking Holdings, the parent company of Booking.com, has reported $18 billion in sales –  higher than it had expected sales in Q4 of 2017.

In its first results since changing its name from Priceline Group, the online travel company – which is also behind Kayak.com, Priceline.com and Agoda.com – saw bookings rise 19% to $18 billion. Profit was up 22% to $2.8 billion.

The group is now looking to grow the value of its total gross bookings by between 14% and 18.5% in the current quarter, the first of its current financial year.

For the full-year 2017, Booking Holdings had gross travel bookings of $81.2 billion, a 19% increase compared to 2016 (approximately 19% on a constant-currency basis).  Booking Holdings’ gross profit in 2017 was $12.4 billion, a 21% increase from the prior year.

Chief executive Glenn Fogel said: “We are pleased with the solid execution across all of our brands in 2017 as we moved ahead on important investments in the year while driving strong top-line growth.

“We intend to continue to strategically invest in our business by growing our supply base to drive customer choice, innovating around the customer and supplier experience and investing in marketing that builds consumer awareness for our brands and delivers profitable top-line growth.”