Expedia raises 2025 revenue growth forecast on strong US business

(Reuters) -Online travel platform Expedia boosted its forecast for 2025 revenue growth, after beating Wall Street estimates for third-quarter profit, helped by strong demand from its business clients, sending its shares up nearly 15% after the bell.

The Seattle-based company now expects annual revenue to grow between 6% and 7%, compared to an earlier forecast range of 3% to 5%.

Bookings in Expedia's B2B segment, which caters to corporate travel management firms, offline travel agents and financial institutions, rose 26% to $9.38 billion during the third quarter.

Expedia's U.S. room nights rose by high single digits, its fastest growth in over three years, but still lagged behind international markets. Growth was strongest in Asia, where nights jumped over 20%.

Expedia also said it is monitoring the government shutdown "very closely," now the longest on record amid a stalemate in Washington.

Meanwhile, bookings in Expedia's direct-to-consumer segment, which includes its iconic Hotels.com and short-term rental platform Vrbo, rose 7% to $21.34 billion.

Expedia posted a third-quarter adjusted profit of $7.57 per share compared with analysts' estimate of $6.92 per share, according to LSEG compiled data.

Total gross bookings for the third quarter came in at $30.73 billion, up 12% from last year.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Jain and Anshuman Tripathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)