Priceline Reports 27 Percent Jump in Fiscal Q3 Earnings, Provides Upbeat Outlook
Shares of online travel booking service provider, Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) gained 8.30 percent on Friday after the company announced better-than-expected quarterly profits, thanks rising revenue especially from its international markets.
For the fiscal third quarter, the company reported net profit of $596.6 million, or $11.66 a share, compared to net earnings of $469.5 million, or $9.17 a share, reported in the year earlier quarter. After excluding onetime expenses and restricted stock, adjusted earnings for the quarter climbed to $12.40 a share from year earlier quarter’s $9.95 a share. The company has now posted stronger earnings for several successive quarters on account of healthy hotel-bookings business. Revenue for the third quarter leaped 17% to $1.71 billion. Gross margin came in at 81.8% compared to 75.7%, in the corresponding period of last year.
Earlier in August the Company had forecasted earnings to fall within the range of $11.10 and $12.10 even as revenue growth was expected between 9 % and 15%. However, a 30% growth in international bookings helped revenue to beat street’s estimates. Besides, Priceline’s major part of revenue comes from hotel-booking business instead of air travel- which saw a pullback in recent times. Domestic bookings were up by 7.2% and gross bookings increased by 25%.
Among various business segments, Hotel-room nights sold climbed 36% from a year earlier quarter. Rental-car days rose 35% while airline ticket volume was saw a modest growth of 6.1%.
The Company projected a bullish outlook on fiscal fourth quarter. For the fourth quarter, adjusted earnings are expected to fall within the range of $6.12 and $6.57 a share on revenue growth of about 15% to 22%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently forecasted earnings of $6.34 a-share on revenue growth of 15%.
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Post Written By: Ed Liston
Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.
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