Barbie Malibu DreamHouse: Airbnb’s most popular listing ever

Airbnb hosted its Q2’23 earnings call on Aug 3, 2023. Select highlights:

• Q2 results: Strong quarter for Airbnb with over 115 million nights and experiences Booked.
• Revenue: $2.5 billion, grew 18% YoY (19% YoY excluding foreign exchange).
• Net income: $650 million, representing a net income margin of 26%, highest second quarter ever.
• Free cash flow: $900 million for the quarter, up 13% YoY; trailing 12-month free cash flow at $3.9 billion with a margin of 43%.
• Stock repurchase: Able to repurchase $2.5 billion of stock in the last 12 months.
• 1.5 billion guest arrivals since starting Airbnb.
• Guests are traveling farther.
• Cross-border nights booked increased 16% in Q2 compared to last year.
• Added a record number of new listings in Q2, totaling more than 7 million active listings.
• Added new pricing tools for Hosts and made it easier for Hosts to add discounts to promotions.
• Added a new feature called Similar Listings to help Hosts see listings in their areas and know what they charge.
• Rolled out more affordable monthly stays. Significantly reduced fees for stays longer than 3 months.
• Started offering US guests the option to save money by paying with their bank account, and made it easier for Hosts to offer monthly discounts.
• Launched Airbnb Rooms. “Airbnb Rooms takes us back to our founding ethos of sharing, and it’s one of the most affordable ways to travel.”
• Airbnb recently partnered with Warner Bros. and Mattel to transform a home into the iconic Barbie Malibu DreamHouse in celebration of the Barbie movie premiere. This unique collaboration was part of Airbnb’s Only On Airbnb campaign, which taps into global pop culture moments to inspire guests with extraordinary experiences. The Barbie Malibu DreamHouse has become a sensation and is currently the most popular listing on Airbnb. The campaign generated significant media attention, with over 13,000 press hits and an impressive 250 million social media impressions since its announcement. To put this into perspective, it garnered more than twice the number of press hits generated from Airbnb’s initial public offering (IPO).
• Last year, it got 600,000 articles written about it. So people talk a lot about Airbnb.
• Bringing the successful playbook to Japan and Korea, viewing Asia Pacific as a frontier with immense growth potential.
• AI as a game-changer: Views AI as a transformative platform shift, comparable to the Internet, presenting substantial opportunities for innovation and new business prospects. “I think AI is basically like a once-in-a-generation platform shift, probably bigger than the shift to mobile, probably more akin to something like the Internet as far as what it can do for new businesses and new business opportunities.”