Airbnb third quarter 2021 financial results

Today we issued our third quarter 2021 financial results. You can read the details here. Airbnb Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky said: 

“The third quarter was Airbnb’s best quarter yet. The pandemic has led to a revolution in how we live, work and travel and we’re constantly innovating to meet this new way of traveling and living.”

The travel rebound that began earlier this year accelerated in Q3, resulting in Airbnb’s strongest quarter ever. Revenue and net income were our highest ever. Adjusted EBITDA exceeded $1 billion, also our highest ever. This summer, we reached a major milestone of 1 billion cumulative guest arrivals as more people got vaccinated and travel restrictions were relaxed. Host earnings reached a record $12.8 billion in the quarter, and active listings continued to grow. 

Q3 2021 financial results:

• Q3 revenue of $2.2 billion was our highest ever—36% higher than Q3 2019. It also exceeded Q3 2020 revenue of $1.3 billion by nearly 70% year-over-year. More significantly, year-over-two-year revenue growth more than tripled from 10% in Q2 2021 to 36% in Q3 2021. The sequential acceleration reflects continued strength in North America, EMEA and Latin America, as well as high ADRs. Q3 is typically our largest quarter due to summer travel peak. 

• Q3 net income of $834 million was our most profitable quarter ever, nearly 4x larger than a year ago. Net income in Q3 2021 improved $615 million (280%) compared to Q3 2020 and $567 million (213%) compared to Q3 2019 due to our significant revenue recovery and our continued expense discipline. 

• Q3 Adjusted EBITDA exceeded $1 billion for the first time ever. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 2021 of $1.1 billion was also our highest ever, doubling from $501 million in Q3 2020 and more than tripling from $314 million in Q3 2019. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 49% for Q3 2021, by far our best margin ever, an increase of 30% (or 3,000 bps) compared to Q3 2019. This substantial improvement in Adjusted EBITDA demonstrates the strength of our business, as well as a significantly improved cost structure*.  

Q3 2021 business highlights:

• People can travel anytime. Many people now have greater freedom around when they travel, and we’ve improved our product to better meet their needs. Earlier this year, we introduced I’m Flexible, a whole new way to search on Airbnb when guests are flexible about when or where they travel. Since then, guests have used I’m Flexible more than 500 million times. Families are increasingly thinking outside of the traditional weekend trip; we are currently seeing the most growth in stays on Monday and Tuesday nights. We expect that flexibility will continue to be important going forward, with 87% of participants in our recent five-country survey indicating that having flexibility is important when they travel**. 

• People are traveling everywhere. People are increasingly discovering new places to travel, and I’m Flexible also supports guests who are flexible on where they go. Instead of guests traveling to the same historically popular urban destinations, we’ve seen consistent demand growth in both nearby and rural destinations. Over 40% of gross nights booked in Q3 2021 were within 300 miles of home, up from 32% in Q3 2019, while gross nights booked to rural destinations increased more than 40% in Q3 2021 from Q3 2019. Meanwhile, we’ve seen urban travel gradually returning, but fanning out beyond iconic cities. In Q3 2021, our top 10 cities represented 6% of gross revenue, down from 11% in Q3 2019. During the pandemic, more than 100,000 cities have had at least one Airbnb booking, including more than 6,000 cities and towns receiving their first booking ever. I’m Flexible allows us to point guest demand to where and when we have ample Host supply—increasing demand for our existing Host community, without the need to always add listings. 

• People are living on Airbnb. The increased popularity of long-term stays are turning traveling into living. Long-term stays of 28 days or more remained our fastest-growing category by trip length and accounted for 20% of gross nights booked in Q3 2021, up from 14% in Q3 2019. Long-term stays represent a broad set of use cases—including extended leisure travel, relocation, temporary housing, student housing, and many others. Our Hosts welcome this growing demand for long-term stays. More than 90% of active listings now accept long-term stays, and the number of active listings that offer the monthly discount is up 20% from Q3 2019.

• More people are interested in hosting. In Q3, we saw continued supply growth, and our Host community is stronger than ever. Several of the innovations we announced in May—including our new Host onboarding flow, and our Ask a Superhost program—are helping new Hosts get listed and succeed. In addition, we are also seeing our strong demand contribute to our supply growth. Destinations where we are seeing strong demand continue to show the strongest supply growth; active listings in non-urban Europe and North America increased almost 15% from Q1 2021 to Q3 2021. One of the factors that attracts Hosts to Airbnb is economic empowerment; in Q3, Hosts earned a record $12.8 billion in income from Airbnb, up 27% from Q3 2019.