By Shares of Carnival Corp. experienced a notable rally on Friday as the cruise operator achieved its first quarterly profit since before the COVID pandemic. The company recorded “significantly elevated” demand, leading to record-breaking revenue and bookings.
Positive Growth in Stock Prices
Carnival Corp.’s stock (CCL, +0.48% CCL, +3.86%) rose by 2.4% during morning trading, marking a three-day winning streak.
Impressive Financial Performance
For the quarter ending on August 31, the company reported a net income of $1.07 billion, equivalent to 79 cents per share. This is a significant improvement from the loss of $770 million (65 cents per share) incurred during the same period the previous year.
Exceeding Expectations
Factoring in nonrecurring items, the adjusted earnings per share came in at 86 cents. This surpasses both last year’s loss of 58 cents per share and the FactSet consensus of 75 cents.
Long-Awaited Positive Results
Based on FactSet data, this marks Carnival Corp.’s first reported net profit since November 2019. Additionally, it represents the first adjusted profit since February 2020.
Impressive Revenue Growth
The company’s revenue experienced robust growth, increasing by 59.2% to reach $6.85 billion. This exceeded the FactSet consensus of $6.71 billion. Passenger ticket revenue also saw substantial growth, rising by 75.2% to $4.55 billion, while onboard and other revenue increased by 34.9% to $2.31 billion.
CEO Expresses Satisfaction
Chief Executive Josh Weinstein credited the outstanding performance to strong demand across both the North America and Australia segment and the Europe segment.
Booking Volumes Continue to Soar for Carnival
Booking volumes at Carnival have reached “significantly elevated levels,” with the company achieving a new third-quarter record for total bookings. The CEO, Weinstein, stated that the company is maintaining strong momentum and steadily building demand through improved commercial execution. Impressively, booking volumes during the quarter were almost 20% higher than in 2019 and have continued to increase into September.
2023 Outlook Revised for Carnival
Looking ahead to fiscal 2023, Carnival has revised its guidance range for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda). The new range is $4.10 billion to $4.20 billion, slightly lower than the previous range of $4.10 billion to $4.25 billion.
Additionally, Carnival announced that adjusted cruise costs, excluding fuel, for 2023 would be “at the high end” of its June guidance. This follows their previous statement that costs would be 1.5 percentage points higher than the March guidance.
Carnival Stock Performance
While Carnival’s stock has experienced a 13.9% slump over the past three months, it has soared by an impressive 83.4% year-to-date. In comparison, the S&P 500 index has seen a 1.5% decline in the past three months but has gained 12.7% this year.
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