Booking drops on EBITDA miss; analysts remain bullish

Booking Holdings (NASDAQ:) shares trade 3% lower following the company’s reported .

While EPS of $11.60 and revenue of $3.8 billion (up 40% year-over-year) came in better than the consensus estimates of $10.67 and $3.76B, respectively, adjusted EBITDA of $586 million missed both the company’s and analysts’ expectations.

The company reported an all-time quarterly high for both room nights of 274M and gross bookings of $39.4B, up 38% and 44% year-over-year, respectively.

For Q2, the company expects adjusted EBITDA to be around 35% higher than last year, assuming that room night growth will be up mid-single digits year-over-year.

BofA analysts hiked the price target by $50 per share to $2,900.

“Booking is off to a strong start in 2023 with bookings upside and a 2Q outlook that seems conservative (intra-Qdeceleration anticipated), and we are constructive on management’s execution (1Q share gains, AA nights up 45%) and ongoing commitment to strong capital returns (buybacks) to drive EPS growth. However, booking windows are returning to normal (lengthening),” they said in a note.

“Booking faces tougher comps post 1Q on a y/y basis, and we think Expedia (NASDAQ:) can be more competitive after seeing significant share losses over TTM, all of which should slow future bookings growth.”

UBS analysts also increased the price target as they went to $2,925.

“We think investors are overly reacting to below-consensus EBITDA guide for 2Q, which we also attribute to faster bookings growth – a high class problem in our view,” the analysts wrote.

(Additional reporting by Senad Karaahmetovic)