BKNG Booking Holdings Inc

   By Maria Armental 
 

Online travel giant Booking Holdings Inc. swung to a loss in the latest period as operating expenses nearly doubled. Revenue more than tripled from the year earlier, when the pandemic sapped travel demand.

The parent company of Kayak, Priceline, OpenTable and others said the dollar value of travel services booked by customers, less cancellations, surged to $22 billion in the June quarter.

"We are encouraged by another quarter of meaningful sequential improvement in booking trends with second quarter room nights increasing 59% versus the first quarter of 2021, primarily driven by stronger results in Europe and in the U.S.," Chief Executive Glenn Fogel said in a statement.

Overall, Booking Holdings swung to a second-quarter loss of $167 million from a $122 million profit a year earlier. On a per-share basis, the loss was $4.08, or $2.55 as adjusted.

Revenue for the quarter surged to $2.16 million from $630 million a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected a loss of $3.35 a share, or $2.06 a share as adjusted, on $1.88 billion in revenue.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 04, 2021 16:26 ET (20:26 GMT)

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