Brian Chesky: Yes, absolutely. So I think one of the great things about Airbnb is that most of our innovation in most of our business is developed organically. And that just becomes from our DNA. Like Airbnb was started by three product and then just product, people and engineers, two designers an engineer. And we created Joni [ph] and I created this company from nothing with really no capital whatsoever to speak of. So I think build and the organic growth is in our DNA, and it’s always going to be our predisposition. That being said, with the scale that we have, the scale we have, having nearly 2 billion guest arrivals and more than $70 billion GBV, that is a huge asset to be able to partner. And a number of brands have reached out to us telling us they want to partner Airbnb not just because of the traffic we have, but also because of the strength of our brand.
So we think that there’s a myriad of opportunities of partnerships. Now on in the buy [ph] we’re going to be — we’re going to have a very high bar for ROI for acquisitions. We’ve done a number of acquisitions in the past. Some have been very successful. And with our free cash flow, we have generated $3.8 billion of free cash flow. We absolutely have the cash and obviously, the currency of our stock to make acquisitions, but we’re going to be very, very thoughtful and there’s always going to be build, then partner then buy probably in that order of prioritization.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Mark Mahaney: Let me try two questions. There’s some discussion in your shareholder letter about take rates. Just take rates have been relatively consistent in the last couple of years. Is there any reason to think that, that pattern won’t change going forward or will change going forward? Is there a reason why take rates would actually go up? And then secondly, Brian, you talked about the ability to really expand in Asia. And I don’t know – and I understand the momentum that you’ve got in Korea. Asia, it seems like it’s generally been a tough market for a lot of Internet companies that tried to expand there, and there’s – China seems to be relatively off-limit. So just talk through a little bit more about why you see grounds for optimism in that region. And I know there’s a lot more to Asia than just China, but I wanted to ask that question. Thank you.
Brian Chesky: Mark, yes, why don’t I – when we do, I’ll do Asia and then Dave will take, take rate. So I mean no doubt that Internet companies have struggled in Asia. I think in particular, they struggled in China, and we do not have an inbound business, the domestic business in China any longer. Although obviously, there’s a lot of stories of companies doing well in other countries in Asia. So let me just talk about why I think Airbnb is unique. The reason why, as you know, is that we’re a global travel network. And so 44% of our nights booked were cross-border. And if you’re in Japan and you want to stay in Germany and you don’t want to stay in a hotel, then where are you going to go? You’re going to want to go to a global platform, probably not a Japanese platform.
And the reason is you’re going to Germany from Japan, and you’re not going to use a Japanese platform because the Japanese platform would have to get German homes on that platform, and that is probably not going to happen. And so we think this is a global market. There’s a global network, not a regional network. And one of the things we’ve noticed is that Airbnb seems to work about as well in every single country that we’ve entered. Now there’s a big question about Latin America, for example. We were massively underpenetrated. And there was a question, well, this is an emerging market, will Latin America work well? And then, of course, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru have grown very, very quickly. And we – and also I just say the success of Korea has been phenomenal.
And the other thing is that the population in Asia is generally younger than the population in Europe and North America. And the other thing we know is that young people tend to gravitate more to Airbnb than older cohorts. So I just think the amount of people that are mobile applications that are young, where Airbnb [ph] they’re not predisposed to book a hotel, the strength of network effects and the fact that there’s going to be really strong cross-border travel in Airbnb is a cross-border network are all the reasons why I think Asia will be no different than any other region in Airbnb. It might just take a little bit more time. Dave?
David Stephenson: And then, Mark, in terms of take rates, no, there should be consistent. There’s no real reason why they should be going up on kind of a time-adjusted basis. We have not materially changed our pricing as a percentage of GBV when you adjust for the timing. So we are testing a cross-currency themes, as we mentioned earlier in the call, but you shouldn’t count that as a major expansion of fees this year. In Q1, the implied take rate revenue over gross booking value is going to be higher, but that again, that’s largely due to timing, right, a little more revenue coming in Q1 largely due to the Easter timing. So now longer term, I am excited about the opportunity for revenue driving with our experiences and services and that ability to drive incremental revenue and incremental margin.
So over a longer period of time, I think our margin expansion will absolutely come from hosting guest services and experiences. But here in the short term, there’s no real change on time-adjusted basis towards these.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Alex Brignall from Redburn Atlantic. Your line is open.
Alex Brignall: Good evening. Thank you very much for taking the question. First one would just be on the Q1 guide. Just trying to understand what you’re implying on the take rate expansion because there’s obviously one comment which is Easter timing, which is 1% to 2% of revenue, but it seems like the comment of notably higher take rates would be more than just 1% to 2% extra on the revenue. So if you could just piece that out and then obviously, it feeds back into the room nights. And the second one, just in terms of a little bit more detail on the cross currency. It sounds like what you’re saying is that it now is another lever that you have, which is fantastic, but it’s something that you’re going to test with. Is there an amount of friction that you expect when you add it, do people have the chance to not pay the fee, where will it be displayed to consumers?
And your last comment, Dave, on the take rate not expanding, but presumably, that means that in terms of its contribution to take rate, it’s going to be relatively immaterial? Thank you so much.
David Stephenson: Yes. So the two areas. The reason why we say the particular expansion in Q1 is because there’s a double hit. You have the increased revenue in Q1 due to the timing and you have decreased gross booking value that shifts from Q1 to Q2. So both increased revenue and decreased gross booking values in the period by some amount, say, 100 to 200 basis points, and then you get that greater expansion of fees, revenue over gross booking values. So that’s why we give the guidance that way. Yes, in terms of cross country – cross currency, we’re going to be tough here. We’ll be launching in April. We need to understand what the impact is to demand overall. I mean, if you step back to it, it’s actually a unique capability that the vast majority of other platforms either don’t have or they charge a substantial premium for.
So we’ve been largely giving away this benefit for no incremental costs, and we were just monitoring and have the capability of adjusting that fee if we so choose, and we will – but we’ll be mindful about it to make sure that we’re thoughtful in terms of the impact on overall demand.
Operator: We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Brian Chesky for some closing remarks.
Brian Chesky: All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Just to recap, revenue was another incredibly strong quarter. Revenue was $2.2 billion, 70% higher. Adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA were both to Q4 records and our trailing 12-month free cash flow of $2.8 billion. And this, of course, represents a free cash flow margin at 39%. I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish this past year, and there’s more to come. 2024 marks the beginning of a new chapter for Airbnb, and I look forward to sharing more throughout the year. Thank you all very much.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.+
