Airbnb Q4-2023 and full-year financial results

We issued our fourth quarter and full-year 2023 financial results. You can read the details here. Airbnb Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky said: 

“2023 was another incredible year for Airbnb. Our Host community surpassed 5 million for the first time, we delivered nearly 200 new upgrades to our core service, and we ended the year with our highest-ever number of global active listings.”

Overview of Q4 and full-year results

Airbnb ended 2023 with another strong quarter. In Q4, Nights and Experiences Booked totaled 99 million, growing 12 percent year-over-year, and marking our highest fourth quarter ever. Revenue of $2.2 billion grew 17 percent year-over-year (14% ex-FX). Q4 net loss was $349 million and excluding non-recurring tax items, Adjusted Net Income was $489 million—our most profitable fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA of $738 million represented a 33 percent Adjusted EBITDA Margin, up 6 percentage points from the year prior. 

Over the past year, we’ve also made significant progress across our strategic priorities. We’re excited to share our results along with how we’ll continue investing in these areas in 2024: 

• Making hosting mainstream: We’re focused on making hosting just as popular as traveling on Airbnb, and we believe our approach is working. In Q4, our Host community surpassed 5 million Hosts around the globe. Active listings exceeded 7.7 million by the end of 2023, increasing 18% year-over-year with sustained double-digit supply growth across all regions. And in 2023 alone, Hosts earned more than $57 billion. In 2024, we’ll continue raising awareness around hosting and improving the overall host experience. 
• Perfecting the core service: Over the past three years, we’ve launched more than 430 new features and upgrades to our core service. We’ve made significant improvements to make Airbnb a more affordable and reliable option. We’re already seeing a positive impact. For example, host cancellations decreased by 36% in Q4 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. And two-thirds of our Hosts now offer weekly or monthly discounts. We’ll continue responding to feedback from the community, and in 2024, we’ll continue to improve the quality and reliability of stays. 
• Expanding beyond the core: Airbnb is at an inflection point. We spent the past three years perfecting our core service, and now we’re ready to embark on our next chapter. To unlock more opportunities for growth, we’re investing in under-penetrated international markets, and we’re seeing great results. Following the success we’ve seen in recent quarters in Germany, Brazil and Korea, we’re now expanding our playbook to countries including Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. We also believe that now is the time for us to expand beyond our core business and reinvent Airbnb. While this will be a gradual, multi-year journey, we’re excited to share more about this later in 2024. 

Q4 and full-year 2023 financial results

Here is a snapshot of our Q4 and Full-Year 2023 results: 

• Q4 revenue was $2.2 billion, up 17% year-over-year. Revenue increased to $2.2 billion in Q4 2023 from $1.9 billion in Q4 2022, driven by solid growth in Nights and Experiences Booked, a modest increase in Average Daily Rate (“ADR”) and an FX tailwind. 

• Q4 net loss was $349 million, including non-recurring tax items. In Q4 2023, net loss included non-recurring tax withholding expenses and lodging tax reserves of approximately $1 billion. Excluding these expenses and after applying our anticipated long-term effective tax rate of 21%, our Adjusted Net Income was $489 million compared to $319 million of net income in Q4 2022. Our Adjusted Net Income increased primarily due to our revenue growth, expense discipline and interest income. Adjusted Net Income Margin was 22% in Q4 2023, up significantly compared to net income margin of 17% in Q4 2022. 

• Q4 Adjusted EBITDA was $738 million, up 46% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $738 million in Q4 2023 from $506 million in Q4 2022, which demonstrates the continued strength of our business and discipline in managing our cost structure. Adjusted EBITDA Margin was 33% compared to a Q4 2022 Adjusted EBITDA Margin of 27%¹. 

• Q4 Free Cash Flow was $46 million, including non-recurring tax items. In Q4 2023, net cash provided by operating activities was $63 million compared to $463 million in Q4 2022. This decrease in year-over-year cash flow was due to non-recurring tax items associated with host withholding and lodging taxes, which more than offset the growth in revenue and bookings. Our full-year FCF was $3.8 billion, including these tax items, representing a FCF Margin of 39%². 

• Q4 share repurchases of $750 million. Our strong cash flow enabled us to repurchase $750 million of our Class A common stock in Q4 2023. Share repurchases during the full year 2023 totaled $2.25 billion, and we reduced our fully diluted share count from 694 million at the end of Q4 2022 to 676 million at the end of Q4 2023. Since we announced our first share repurchase program in 2022, we have repurchased a total of $3.75 billion of Class A common stock. As of December 31, 2023, we had $750 million remaining under our prior program and today, we’re announcing a new share repurchase program with authorization to purchase up to $6 billion of our Class A common stock.

Business highlights 

Our strong Q4 was driven by a number of positive business highlights: 

• Guest demand remains strong—especially among first-time bookers. Nights and Experiences Booked grew 12% in Q4 2023 compared to a year ago. Following the volatility that impacted our business in October, we saw an acceleration of nights booked growth throughout the rest of the quarter.  We’re also particularly encouraged by the year-over-year growth of first-time bookers during Q4 2023. In fact, we exited 2023 with the highest quarterly growth rate of the year for first time bookers. Lastly, we continued to see momentum in Airbnb app downloads with 55% of our gross nights booked in the Airbnb app during Q4 2023 compared to 50% in Q4 2022. We believe our app provides a more seamless experience for our guests.

• Growth is accelerating in under-penetrated markets. As part of our international expansion strategy, we’re investing in brand awareness and consideration in less mature markets. We’re also focusing on localization efforts to fuel growth. As a result, we’re seeing greater momentum for Airbnb across a variety of regions. In Q4 2023, gross nights booked on an origin basis in Brazil nearly doubled compared to the same period in 2019 and we anticipate rolling out our playbook to other Latin America markets. In EMEA, we’ve also begun investing in several mid-size markets, in addition to our continued focus on Germany. 

• We’re driving affordability for guests. Throughout 2023, we introduced several features to help provide more affordable options for guests, from new pricing tools for Hosts to increased price transparency for guests. We’re encouraged by the results. Since launching these features, 1.4 million Hosts have used Similar Listings, a feature that lets Hosts compare their listing to others in the area. Additionally, since launching Total Price Display in early 2023, we’ve seen nearly 300,000 listings remove or lower their cleaning fees. By the end of the year, nearly 40% of our active listings charged no cleaning fee at all. Excluding the impact of FX, year-over-year growth in global ADR remained relatively stable the past three quarters, with less than a 1% increase in Q4 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Also, while the average nightly price of a one-bedroom listing on Airbnb in December was $114, down 2% from the prior-year period, hotel prices rose 7% to $149 over the same period³. 

• We’ve added nearly 1.2 million active listings over the last year. Airbnb has grown to more than 5 million Hosts with over 7.7 million active listings around the world. In Q4 2023, our active listings grew by 18% compared to Q4 2022. We continued to see double-digit supply growth across all regions, with the highest growth in Asia Pacific and Latin America—the two regions that also had the most year-over-year growth in Nights and Experiences Booked. Consistent with the prior quarter, urban and non-urban supply grew at similar rates year-over-year. We continued to see relatively similar growth among individual and professional Hosts and believe the majority of new listings are exclusive to Airbnb.