3) Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 62
Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) is an online travel company, which carries out operations through segments such as B2C, B2B, and trivago.
While releasing its financial results for 1Q 2024, it reported total gross bookings of $30.2 billion, exhibiting a rise of 3% as compared to 2023. Its revenue of $2.9 billion went up by 8% as compared to 2023. B2B revenue came in at $833 million, reflecting an increase of 25% as compared to 2023.
Piper Sandler covered the shares of Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), and downgraded its rating from “Overweight” to “Neutral.” The company also decided to cut its target price from $175.00 to $145.00 on 3rd May. This can be because of not-so-strong 1Q 2024 results. The company saw less robust gross bookings. Vrbo’s recovery after re-platforming was slower than anticipated, which impacted its gross bookings.
However, some experts believe that it is all set to soar from the current levels. The company transitioned to unified platform over previous few years. Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) continues to grow its presence internationally too. The company plans to make use of vast spending data which it collects to build out new media network. Given momentum in the ad spending in the last year, the company might see supplemental revenue streams. As a result, the company might see growth in emerging markets such as China and in vacation rental market.
The average price target for the company is $142.29. This is based on 25 Wall Street analysts’ 12-month price objectives, which were issued in previous 3 months.
62 hedge funds made investments in this company, as per Insider Monkey’s Q1 database.
Brown Capital Management released its first quarter 2024 investor letter. The company mentioned about Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE). Here is what it said:
“Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) is the largest online travel agency (OTA) in the U.S., offering a wide range of travel products, including flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises and vacation packages. Our original thesis was that increasing online travel penetration would provide solid growth and that significant margin expansion could be achievable. Since we first invested in Expedia eight years ago, there has indeed been a significant shift in travel spending toward online platforms, with penetration rates expanding considerably. While this aligns with our early expectations, the market for online travel is now much more penetrated, providing less opportunity for future growth. In addition, Expedia has been unable to meaningfully narrow the margin gap with its closest competitor, Booking Holdings, due to inconsistent execution and an unwieldy proliferation of brands within the company’s portfolio. Given the company’s more mature market position and its lagging margin performance, we decided to sell Expedia out of the Fund.”
