Airbnb (ABNB) stock surged more than 14% on Friday following an earnings beat as CEO Brian Chesky said he wanted to make the vacation home marketplace app more than a destination for people seeking a place to stay.
«We want the Airbnb app, kind of similar to Amazon (AMZN), to be one place you go for all of your traveling and living needs,» Chesky said during the company’s post-earnings conference call Thursday. «A place to stay is just really, frankly, a very small part of the overall equation.»
In its shareholder letter on Thursday, the company announced plans to launch «one or a couple of businesses» adjacent to travel every year for the next four or five years.
Chesky didn’t give details on which specific businesses would be launched, but noted Amazon’s (AMZN) path, which first started selling books, then DVDS and CDs.
Chesky noted that Airbnb is used by 1.6 billion devices a year. People typically use the app once or twice a year. He would like to raise that rate to once or twice a week.
Airbnb said that the launching and scaling of new businesses around the app will require an investment of $200 million to $250 million, which will have an impact on near-term margins.
«While we are encouraged by ABNB’s strong start to 2025, margins are expected to compress as much as 200bps & new businesses, incl. Experiences, come with execution risk,» wrote JPMorgan analysts on Friday. The firm reaffirmed its Neutral rating and $160 price target on the stock.
Meanwhile, Jefferies analyst John Colantuoni recommended a Hold on the stock, with a $165 price target.
«We prefer to stay on the sidelines until gaining greater visibility into contributions from new products and timing for sponsored listings,» he said.
Airbnb’s revenue in the fourth quarter jumped 12% year over year to $2.48 billion, beating analyst expectations of $2.42 billion.
Gross bookings also jumped 14% to $17.6 billion, higher than Wall Street expectations for $17.19 billion.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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