Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT) has released its third-quarter earnings report for 2024, revealing a mix of positive and negative outcomes.
Christopher J. Nassetta, President & CEO of Hilton, said, "We were pleased to deliver continued strong bottom line results that exceeded our guidance, despite slower top line growth which was driven by modestly slower macro trends, weather impacts, and unfavorable calendar shifts. We continued to demonstrate the strength of our model, opening more rooms than any other quarter in our history, surpassing 8,000 hotels, and achieving net unit growth of 7.8%."
While Hilton's earnings report shows solid growth in several areas, the company's stock dipped 5.3% in pre-market trading due to lower-than-expected revenue and a revised earnings forecast for fiscal 2024.
Here are the key highlights.
Financial performance:
Net Income: Hilton reported net income of $344 million in the third quarter.
Earnings Per Share (EPS): Diluted EPS was $1.38, while adjusted EPS was $1.92.
Revenue: The company's quarter revenue rose by 7.3% to $2.867 billion from $2.673 billion last year.
System-wide Comparable RevPAR: Increased by 1.4% currency-neutral compared to the same period in 2023.
Operational highlights:
Room Development: Hilton approved 27,500 new rooms for development during the third quarter, bringing its development pipeline to 492,400 rooms as of September 30, 2024.
Net Unit Growth: The company added a record 36,600 rooms to its system in the third quarter, resulting in 33,600 net additional rooms and record net unit growth of 7.8% from the previous year.
Share Repurchases: Hilton repurchased 3.3 million shares of its common stock during the third quarter. This brought total capital return, including dividends, to $764 million for the quarter and $2,422 million year-to-date.
Future projections:
Full Year 2024: Hilton projects system-wide RevPAR to increase between 2.0% and 2.5% on a comparable and currency-neutral basis compared to 2023. Net income is expected to be between $1.405 billion and $1.429 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be between $3.375 billion and $3.405 billion.
Capital Return: The company expects its full-year 2024 capital return to be approximately $3.0 billion.
Net Unit Growth for 2025: Expected to be between 6.0% and 7.0%.
As of 8:15 am (AEDT), Thursday October 24, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT) was trading at US$233.50, experiencing a decrease of 1.94% from the previous day. The stock saw a day low of $231.13 and a day high of $237.50. Hilton's market cap was at US$57.54 billion.