Expedia Group Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results

Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) announced financial results today for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023.

“We delivered on our full year guidance and drove record results, all while completing a massive transformation and navigating the inherent volatility that comes with that. Our work is finally starting to deliver results, and we are in the best place we’ve ever been technologically,” said Peter Kern, Vice Chairman and CEO, Expedia Group. “Moving forward, we are now able to execute without the numerous constraints we have faced in recent years. We will continue to focus on acquiring and retaining the right customers, driving share growth in our B2C and B2B businesses, and providing the best product and partner experience in the industry. It is really exciting to be in position to go back on offense and lead the industry.”

Key Highlights

• Record full year lodging gross bookings growing 11% with record hotel gross bookings growing 18%, compared to 2022.

• Highest ever full year and fourth quarter revenue, both of which grew 10%, compared to 2022.

• Fourth quarter year over year B2C revenue growth accelerates from the third quarter.

• Record quarterly and full year B2B revenue, increasing 28% and 33%, respectively, compared to 2022.

• Highest ever full year GAAP net income grew 127%, compared to 2022.

• Record full year adjusted EBITDA grew 14%, compared to 2022.

• Significant adjusted EBITDA margin expansion at over 130 basis points for the fourth quarter and nearly 75 basis points for the year, compared to 2022.

• Repurchased over 19 million shares for a record $2 billion in 2023.

Financial Summary & Operating Metrics (In millions, except per share amounts) – Fourth Quarter 2023

Financial Summary & Operating Metrics (In millions, except per share amounts) – Full Year 2023

Conference Call

Expedia Group, Inc. will webcast a conference call to discuss fourth quarter 2023 financial results and certain forward-looking information on Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). The webcast will be open to the public and available via ir.expediagroup.com. Expedia Group expects to maintain access to the webcast on the IR website for approximately twelve months subsequent to the initial broadcast.

About Expedia Group

Expedia Group, Inc. brands power travel for everyone, everywhere through our global platform. Driven by the core belief that travel is a force for good, we help people experience the world in new ways and build lasting connections. We provide industry-leading technology solutions to fuel partner growth and success, while facilitating memorable experiences for travelers. Our organization is made up of three pillars: Expedia Brands, housing all our consumer brands; Expedia Product & Technology, focused on the group’s product and technical strategy and offerings; and Expedia for Business, consisting of business-to-business solutions and relationships throughout the travel ecosystem.

Expedia Group’s three flagship consumer brands includes: Expedia®, Hotels.com®, and Vrbo®. One Key™ is our comprehensive loyalty program that unifies Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo into one simple, flexible travel rewards experience. To enroll in One Key, download Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo mobile apps for free on iOS and Android devices. One Key is currently available in the U.S. and will become available globally soon.

© 2024 Expedia, Inc., an Expedia Group company. All rights reserved. Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. CST: 2029030-50

Notes:

• All trivago revenue is classified as Non-U.S. point of sale.

• B2B includes Egencia, our former full-service travel management company, through its sale in November 2021.

• Some numbers may not add due to rounding. All percentages throughout this release are calculated on precise, unrounded numbers. 

Notes & Definitions:

Booked Room Nights: Represents booked hotel room nights and property nights for our B2C reportable segment and booked hotel room nights for our B2B reportable segment. Booked hotel room nights include both merchant and agency hotel room nights. Property nights are related to our alternative accommodation business.

Booked Air Tickets: Includes both merchant and agency air bookings.

Gross Bookings: Generally represent the total retail value of transactions booked, recorded at the time of booking reflecting the total price due for travel by travelers, including taxes, fees and other charges, adjusted for cancellations and refunds.

Lodging Metrics: Reported on a booked basis except for revenue, which is on a stayed basis. Lodging consists of both merchant and agency model hotel and alternative accommodations.

B2C: The B2C segment (formerly referred to as Retail) provides a full range of travel and advertising services to our worldwide customers through a variety of consumer brands including: Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Orbitz, Travelocity, Wotif Group, ebookers, Hotwire.com, and CarRentals.com.

B2B: The B2B segment fuels a wide range of travel and non-travel companies including airlines, offline travel agents, online retailers, corporate travel management and financial institutions, who leverage our leading travel technology and tap into our diverse supply to augment their offerings and market Expedia Group rates and availabilities to their travelers.

trivago: The trivago segment generates advertising revenue primarily from sending referrals to online travel companies and travel service providers from its localized hotel metasearch websites.

Corporate: Includes unallocated corporate expenses.

Non-GAAP Measures

Expedia Group reports Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Leverage Ratio, Adjusted Net Income (Loss), Adjusted EPS, Free Cash Flow and Adjusted Expenses (non-GAAP cost of revenue, non-GAAP selling and marketing, non-GAAP technology and content and non-GAAP general and administrative), all of which are supplemental measures to GAAP and are defined by the SEC as non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are among the primary metrics by which management evaluates the performance of the business and on which internal budgets are based. Management believes that investors should have access to the same set of tools that management uses to analyze our results. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to results prepared in accordance with GAAP, but should not be considered a substitute for or superior to GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income (Loss) and Adjusted EPS have certain limitations in that they do not take into account the impact of certain expenses to our consolidated statements of operations. We endeavor to compensate for the limitation of the non-GAAP measures presented by also providing the most directly comparable GAAP measures and descriptions of the reconciling items and adjustments to derive the non-GAAP measures. Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income (Loss) and Adjusted EPS also exclude certain items related to transactional tax matters, which may ultimately be settled in cash. We urge investors to review the detailed disclosure regarding these matters in the Management Discussion and Analysis and Legal Proceedings sections, as well as the notes to the financial statements, included in the Company’s annual and quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The non-GAAP financial measures used by the Company may be calculated differently from, and therefore may not be comparable to, similarly titled measures used by other companies.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net income (loss) attributable to Expedia Group adjusted for:

(1) net income (loss) attributable to non-controlling interests;

(2) provision for income taxes;

(3) total other expenses, net;

(4) stock-based compensation expense, including compensation expense related to certain subsidiary equity plans;

(5) acquisition-related impacts, including

(i) amortization of intangible assets and goodwill and intangible asset impairment,

(ii) gains (losses) recognized on changes in the value of contingent consideration arrangements; and

(iii) upfront consideration paid to settle employee compensation plans of the acquiree;

(6) certain other items, including restructuring;

(7) items included in legal reserves, occupancy tax and other, which includes reserves for potential settlement of issues related to transactional taxes (e.g. hotel and excise taxes), related to court decisions and final settlements, and charges incurred, if any, for monies that may be required to be paid in advance of litigation in certain transactional tax proceedings;

(8) that portion of gains (losses) on revenue hedging activities that are included in other, net that relate to revenue recognized in the period; and

(9) depreciation.

The above items are excluded from our Adjusted EBITDA measure because these items are non-cash in nature, or because the amount and timing of these items is unpredictable, not driven by core operating results and renders comparisons with prior periods and competitors less meaningful. We believe Adjusted EBITDA is a useful measure for analysts and investors to evaluate our future on-going performance as this measure allows a more meaningful comparison of our performance and projected cash earnings with our historical results from prior periods and to the results of our competitors. Moreover, our management uses this measure internally to evaluate the performance of our business as a whole and our individual business segments. In addition, we believe that by excluding certain items, such as stock-based compensation and acquisition-related impacts, Adjusted EBITDA corresponds more closely to the cash operating income generated from our business and allows investors to gain an understanding of the factors and trends affecting the ongoing cash earnings capabilities of our business, from which capital investments are made and debt is serviced.

Adjusted Net Income (Loss) generally captures all items on the statements of operations that occur in normal course operations and have been, or ultimately will be, settled in cash and is defined as net income (loss) attributable to Expedia Group plus the following items, net of tax^(a):

(1) stock-based compensation expense, including compensation expense related to equity plans of certain subsidiaries and equity-method investments;

(2) acquisition-related impacts, including;

(i) amortization of intangible assets, including as part of equity-method investments, and goodwill and intangible asset impairment;

(ii) gains (losses) recognized on changes in the value of contingent consideration arrangements;

(iii) upfront consideration paid to settle employee compensation plans of the acquiree; and

(iv) gains (losses) recognized on non-controlling investment basis adjustments when we acquire or lose controlling interests;

(3) currency gains or losses on U.S. dollar denominated cash;

(4) the changes in fair value of equity investments;

(5) certain other items, including restructuring charges;

(6) items included in legal reserves, occupancy tax and other, which includes reserves for potential settlement of issues related to transactional taxes (e.g., hotel occupancy and excise taxes), related court decisions and final settlements, and charges incurred, if any, for monies that may be required to be paid in advance of litigation in certain transactional tax proceedings, including as part of equity method investments;

(7) discontinued operations;

(8) the non-controlling interest impact of the aforementioned adjustment items; and

(9) unrealized gains (losses) on revenue hedging activities that are included in other, net.

Adjusted Net Income (Loss) includes preferred share dividends. We believe Adjusted Net Income (Loss) is useful to investors because it represents Expedia Group’s combined results, taking into account depreciation, which management believes is an ongoing cost of doing business, but excluding the impact of certain expenses and items not directly tied to the core operations of our businesses.

^(a)Effective January 1, 2023, we changed our methodology for the computation of the effective tax rate on pretax adjusted net income to a long-term projected tax rate as our management believes this tax rate provides better consistency across reporting periods and produces results that are reflective of Expedia Group’s long-term effective tax rate. This projected effective tax rate excludes the income tax effects of Adjusted Net Income items described above and eliminates the effects of non-recurring and period specific income tax items which can vary in size and frequency. Based on our current long-term projections, we are using an effective tax rate on pretax adjusted net income of 21.5% for 2023.

Adjusted EPS is defined as Adjusted Net Income (Loss) divided by adjusted weighted average shares outstanding, which, when applicable, include dilution from our convertible debt instruments per the treasury stock method for Adjusted EPS. The treasury stock method assumes we would elect to settle the principal amount of the debt for cash and the conversion premium for shares. If the conversion prices for such instruments exceed our average stock price for the period, the instruments generally would have no impact to adjusted weighted average shares outstanding. This differs from the GAAP method for dilution from our convertible debt instruments, which include them on an if-converted method. We believe Adjusted EPS is useful to investors because it represents, on a per share basis, Expedia Group’s consolidated results, taking into account depreciation, which we believe is an ongoing cost of doing business, as well as other items which are not allocated to the operating businesses such as interest expense, taxes, foreign exchange gains or losses, and minority interest, but excluding the effects of certain expenses not directly tied to the core operations of our businesses. Adjusted Net Income (Loss) and Adjusted EPS have similar limitations as Adjusted EBITDA. In addition, Adjusted Net Income (Loss) does not include all items that affect our net income (loss) and net income (loss) per share for the period. Therefore, we think it is important to evaluate these measures along with our consolidated statements of operations.

Free Cash Flow is defined as net cash flow provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. Management believes Free Cash Flow is useful to investors because it represents the operating cash flow that our operating businesses generate, less capital expenditures but before taking into account other cash movements that are not directly tied to the core operations of our businesses, such as financing activities, foreign exchange or certain investing activities. Free Cash Flow has certain limitations in that it does not represent the total increase or decrease in the cash balance for the period, nor does it represent the residual cash flow for discretionary expenditures. Therefore, it is important to evaluate Free Cash Flow along with the consolidated statements of cash flows.

Adjusted Expenses (cost of revenue, direct and indirect selling and marketing, technology and content and general and administrative expenses) exclude stock-based compensation related to expenses for stock options, restricted stock units and other equity compensation under applicable stock-based compensation accounting standards. Expedia Group excludes stock-based compensation from these measures primarily because they are non-cash expenses that we do not believe are necessarily reflective of our ongoing cash operating expenses and cash operating income. Moreover, because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use when adopting applicable stock-based compensation accounting standards, management believes that providing non-GAAP financial measures that exclude stock-based compensation allows investors to make meaningful comparisons between our recurring core business operating results and those of other companies, as well as providing management with an important tool for financial operational decision making and for evaluating our own recurring core business operating results over different periods of time. There are certain limitations in using financial measures that do not take into account stock-based compensation, including the fact that stock-based compensation is a recurring expense and a valued part of employees’ compensation. Therefore, it is important to evaluate both our GAAP and non-GAAP measures. See the Notes to the Consolidated Statements of Operations for stock-based compensation by line item.

Expedia Group, Inc. (excluding trivago) In order to provide increased transparency on the transaction-based component of the business, Expedia Group is reporting results both in total and excluding trivago.