Airbnb Valuation, EBITDA, Moat & Investment Pitch Flashcards

What is Airbnb's market cap?

~$98B

What is Booking's market cap?

~$118B

What is Expedia's market cap?

~$32B

What is Airbnb's enterprise value?

~$88B

What is Booking's enterprise value?

~$122B

What is Expedia's enterprise value?

~$31B

What is Airbnb's forward P/E?

29.0x

What is Booking's forward P/E?

14.3x

What is Expedia's forward P/E?

12.1x

What is Airbnb's trailing P/E?

37.0x

What is Booking's trailing P/E?

17.5x

What is Expedia's trailing P/E?

17.1x

What is Airbnb's EV/EBITDA?

31.5x

What is Booking's EV/EBITDA?

11.7x

What is Expedia's EV/EBITDA?

10.8x

What is Airbnb's price/FCF?

19.9x

What is Booking's price/FCF?

12.4x

What is Expedia's price/FCF?

7.3x

What is Airbnb's EBITDA margin?

21%

What is Booking's EBITDA margin?

37%

What is Expedia's EBITDA margin?

18%

What is Airbnb's estimated EBITDA growth?

~5%

What is Booking's estimated EBITDA growth?

~17%

What is Airbnb's revenue growth in Q2?

+17%

What is Booking's revenue growth in Q2?

+8%

What is Expedia's revenue growth in Q2?

+14%

What is Airbnb's take rate?

~13%

What is Booking's take rate?

~14%

What is Expedia's take rate?

~13%

What is the recommendation for Airbnb?

Do not buy.

What is the reason for the recommendation?

Airbnb trades at about 2.7x Booking's EV/EBITDA.

What is the buy price for Airbnb?

Start a position below ~$115.

What is the price at which to build a full position in Airbnb?

Below $100.

What is the current price of Airbnb?

~$166.

What is a moat?

A durable competitive advantage that protects profits from competitors.

What is multi-homing?

Hosts listing the same home on several platforms.

What are switching costs?

Near zero for guests and low for hosts.

What are network effects?

The product gets better as more people use it.

What is the 120M alt nights number?

About 37% of Booking's ~325M quarterly room nights are alternative accommodations, roughly 120M.

What kind of market is this?

A differentiated oligopoly and two-sided marketplace with three big players competing on brand and marketing.

What's the honest case for Airbnb's moat?

Brand is a verb, ~90% of traffic comes direct, lowest marketing spend (~22% of revenue), and it's growing faster than Booking.

Why is Google a threat?

Google is the front door for travel search, so platforms pay it for traffic; Airbnb's rising app share matters because app bookings skip Google.

Why is the take rate ~13% if the host fee is 15.5%?

The 15.5% is charged on the host's price; gross bookings include taxes and fees, making the fee a smaller share of a bigger number.

GoPro, in one line?

Brand isn't a moat: cheaper cameras and smartphones did the job, so nobody paid up anymore.

Peloton, in one line?

Priced as if its growth would last forever; when it slowed, the stock collapsed.

Zoom, in one line?

A cheaper rival killed the premium, not the business: Teams was basically free, and Zoom stayed profitable while the stock fell over 80%.

What academic support exists for stock performance?

Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1994) found expensive glamour stocks tend to underperform cheaper value stocks due to behavioral bias.

How does that apply to Airbnb?

The cheaper alternative already exists: Booking.com lists similar homes often without a separate guest fee.

What's a counter-example where the premium was right?

Netflix vs Disney: Netflix maintained a premium for years due to compounding growth.

Isn't Airbnb growing faster than Booking?

Yes, revenue +17% vs +8% last quarter, but much of it is already in a 29x P/E.

What about Airbnb's marketing advantage?

Airbnb spends ~22% of revenue on marketing vs ~31% at Booking and ~50% at Expedia.

What about new businesses for Airbnb?

Services, Experiences, and hotels could become new profit pools, but they're small today.

What about buybacks?

$1.1B in Q2 and ~$3.8B in FY2025; they support EPS but offset dilution from stock compensation.

Why disagree with analysts' consensus target of ~$184?

That's only ~11% upside from ~$166 for a stock priced for perfection, with limited upside and real downside.

Does Vrbo raising host fees to 12% help Airbnb?

It could push some hosts toward Airbnb, but Vrbo will still be cheaper for hosts.

What's the EBITDA formula?

Net income + interest + taxes + depreciation + amortization; adjusted EBITDA adds back stock comp and one-time items.

What's the difference between equity value and enterprise value?

Equity value is what shares are worth; enterprise value is market cap + debt - cash.

When to use P/E vs EV/EBITDA?

P/E is for shareholders' earnings; EV/EBITDA compares operating businesses regardless of capital structure.

What is a DCF?

Project future free cash flows and discount them back to today at the cost of capital (WACC).

Comps vs precedents?

Comps value a company based on how similar public companies trade today; precedents value it based on past deals.

What is multiple compression?

When the valuation multiple shrinks even if earnings grow; a 30x stock drifting to 20x can stagnate despite growth.

What is free cash flow?

Cash from operations minus capital spending; Airbnb's is high due to guests paying before travel.

What is margin of safety?

Buying well below what you think something is worth to protect against being wrong.

What is beta and Airbnb's?

Beta measures how much a stock moves vs the market; Airbnb's is ~1.24, meaning it moves about 24% more than the market.

What is mean reversion of multiples?

High or low multiples tend to drift back toward the average over time as growth normalizes.

What are Airbnb's current price, market cap, and EV?

~$166, ~$98B, ~$88B.

What is Airbnb's net cash?

~$9.6B ($12.1B cash vs $2.5B debt).

What are FY2025 revenue and bookings for Airbnb?

$12.2B revenue on $91.3B of gross bookings.

What are Q2 2026 revenue, bookings, and nights?

$3.6B (+17%), $27.2B (+16%), 148M nights (+10%).

What was Q2 net income for Airbnb?

$816M.

How many listings and hosts does Airbnb have?

9M+ listings, 5M+ hosts.

What were Q2 bookings by company?

Booking $51B, Expedia $34B, Airbnb $27B.

What is Airbnb's forward EPS?

~$5.72.