Airbnb shares jump on strong quarterly results, expansion plans

(Reuters) - Airbnb shares rose as much as 13.3% in premarket trade on Friday after the vacation home rentals company beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter results, boosted by strong international travel demand.

Travel companies have been helped by healthy demand in Asia, especially from Chinese consumers visiting destinations in Southeast Asia.

Airbnb said that nights booked by outbound Chinese tourists rose 25% in the fourth quarter. It also saw a 30% growth in nights booked for domestic travel in Latin America, led by Brazil, compared to last year. First-time bookers in the region grew by nearly 15% sequentially.

The short-term rentals platform said growth in expansion markets was twice that of their core markets.

"This instills confidence in our forecast for international markets to add tens of billions in bookings over the next several years," said Morningstar analyst, Dan Wasiolek.

Airbnb also said it plans to invest $200 million to $250 million towards a new travel-related business which would be launched in May.

The company expects to launch one or two businesses every single year for the next five years, CEO Brian Chesky said on the post-earnings conference call.

"I think that each business could take three to five years to scale. A great business could get to a billion dollars of revenue," he added.

William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart said, "over the longer term, the company has the opportunity to add incremental growth drivers such as experiences, among others, and the stock should grow at least in line with revenue growth."

Shares of Airbnb trade at about 32.06 times their forward profit estimates, compared to an industry median of 17.99 times.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)