Airbnb reported mixed financial performance during the “uncertainty” period

The tourism industry faces uneasiness due to economic and political concerns Airbnb There were different results seen in the first quarter of 2025.

Compared with the same period in 2024, the short-term rental giant increased revenue in the first quarter of 2025. The value of total bookings and the growth of night and experience, but net income and adjusted EBITDA both declined as the company outlined many factors in its shareholder letters.

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said the results show that people will continue to choose to use Airbnb “regardless of what's going on in the world,” because he believes the model “adapts inherently.”

“It’s us demonstrating this time and again,” Chesky said. “We started Airbnb during the Great Recession in 2008. People turned to us for a more affordable way to travel, and they started hosting Airbnb to earn extra income. Then in the 2020 pandemic, we gave people a way to choose to travel nearby.”

Chesky said in 2020 that Airbnb's business was “re-estimated”.

“Today, things are uncertain again, but as we have shown in the past, Airbnb will continue to adapt as the world changes,” Chesky said.

Asked about the booking shift and its impact on the U.S. travel market, Airbnb's chief financial officer Ellie Mertz said the company “absolutely” sees the decline in popularity in the U.S. as a destination among inbound travelers.

“What we’ve seen is that, first, it’s rarely popular since coming to the U.S. a year ago, and it’s also relatively early in the year,” she said.

However, she doesn't seem to worry too much about how the decline in US international visitors can affect Airbnb's wider business.

“What we see in this segment are two things: One is a small part of our overall business,” Meltz said, adding that foreign travelers coming to the U.S. contribute 2 to 3% to Airbnb’s overall business.

“At the same time, what we're seeing is in that corridor, the guests from the previous year just chose a different location,” Merz said. “Canadians are traveling much lower, but they're traveling domestically. They're heading to Mexico, they're going to Brazil, they're going to France, they're going to Japan. I think what tells you the distribution is that at this moment, it's not necessarily that people don't want to travel. They're just choosing a different destination.”

She said Airbnb provides travelers with an opportunity to try new locations because of the way it is available worldwide.

In the U.S., Airbnb sees higher income travelers not changing booking behavior, even though the average daily tax rate rises, Meltz said the company's bookings fell for a month or more.

“We do have some American consumers waiting and seeing before booking a summer trip,” she said.

Looking ahead, the company said in its shareholder letter that it expected to schedule nights “relative to Q1 2025.” In April, the demand for Easter travel to Latin America in the U.S. was a “softer result” of “a region where Airbnb sees growth.” It also forecast revenue and adjusted EBITDA's year-on-year growth in the second quarter.

Financial performance

According to the company, Airbnb's revenue was $2.3 billion, a 6% increase in the first quarter, compared with $2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2024, driven by continued growth at night.

Net income fell to $154 million and net income margin was 7%, starting from $264 million in the first quarter of 2024. Airbnb said that “the higher compensation fees based on stocks are mostly due to an increase in total, driven by increased totals, driven by certain investments in private-held companies, certain investments in private-held companies and lower interest income and lower interest income.”

Adjusted EBITDA is $417 million and adjusted EBITDA margin is 18%. Adjusted EBITDA fell about 1.6% year-on-year, from $424 million in Q1 2024. Airbnb cites the same reasons for the loss as the decline in net revenue and says the company also invested more in product development in the first quarter of 2025.

Total bookings were valued at $24.5 billion, up 7% year-on-year. In the first quarter, 143.1 million nights and experiences were booked on Airbnb, an increase of 8% compared to the same period last year.

Sales and marketing expenses in the first quarter of 2025 were $563 million, about 9.5% higher than the $514 million in the first quarter of 2024.

Airbnb prepares for the next chapter

On May 13, Airbnb will host an event to launch its “summer offering” and tease it in a shareholder letter that “Airbnb will surpass residence”. Chesky has been discussing the concept for several years. In its process Q4 2024 revenue phone numberThe company announced that it will sell up to $250 million for its new business in 2025.

Details of these new revenue sources, including related The experience of reimagining the companyIt is expected to be shared at upcoming events.

“We have been building the foundation for this transformation for years,” said Chesky, who arranged A. “We wanted to make sure people like their core services before launching anything new, so we’ve done hundreds of upgrades over the past few years to make Airbnb more suitable for guests and hosts, and now it’s easier to use, affordable, and more reliable.”

He said the company has also made improvements to its mobile app to support new products.

“One of the things our apps do so far is [it] He said let you book a house. So we rebuilt the app from scratch in the new technology stack, and now we can innovate faster and offer more than the house. ”