The accommodation platform Airbnb wants to grow in Germany’s neighboring countries Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. When announcing the plans, the US company also expressly referred to recent successes in Germany – even though it is only at the beginning here. Airbnb is also relying on artificial intelligence to completely change the user experience in the app, said co-founder and boss Brian Chesky.
Airbnb’s sales rose 17 percent year-on-year to $2.2 billion (2.05 billion euros) in the last quarter. At the end of the year, more than 7.7 million apartments and houses were offered for overnight stays on the platform – 18 percent more than a year earlier. The greatest growth occurred in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions.
At the same time, for every Airbnb customer there are still nine who go to a hotel instead, Chesky emphasized in a conference call with analysts. That’s why we still see a lot of room for growth.
The bottom line is that Airbnb posted a loss of $349 million in the last quarter, after being in the black of $319 million a year earlier. As justification, the company cited a one-time tax burden of around one billion dollars.
