Shareholder Letter

Q4 2021

Nights and Experiences Booked

Airbnb saw continued strength in Nights and Experiences Booked in North America, EMEA and Latin America, all of which have driven significant year-over-year growth.

Q4 2021FY 2021

73.4M

300.6M

59% Y/Y

56% Y/Y

(3)% Y/2Y

(8)% Y/2Y

Gross Booking Value (GBV)

Strong recovery in Nights and Experiences Booked combined with higher Average Daily Rates ("ADR") drove over $11 billion of GBV in Q4 2021. Both Q4 and FY 2021 saw significant increases in GBV from a year ago as well as from pre-COVID periods in 2019.

$11.3B

$46.9B

91% Y/Y

96% Y/Y

93% Y/Y (ex-FX)

92% Y/Y (ex-FX)

32% Y/2Y

23% Y/2Y

Revenue

Revenue for both Q4 and FY 2021 were up nearly 80% year-over-year and exceeded 2019 levels- demonstrating the strength of Airbnb's recovery.

$1.5B

$6.0B

78% Y/Y

77% Y/Y

79% Y/Y (ex-FX)

74% Y/Y (ex-FX)

38% Y/2Y

25% Y/2Y

Net income was positive in Q4 2021 (and a record for

$55M

$(352)M

Net Income (Loss)

the fourth quarter), driven by our top-line recovery

$(3.9)B Q4 2020

$(4.6)B FY 2020

and continued expense discipline.

$(352)M Q4 2019

$(674)M FY 2019

Adjusted EBITDA*

$333M

$1.6B

Adjusted EBITDA was positive and our highest ever

for both Q4 and FY 2021 due to our revenue growth

$(21)M Q4 2020

$(251)M FY 2020

combined with continued expense discipline.

$(276)M Q4 2019

$(253)M FY 2019

* A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is provided at the end of this letter.

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Q4 2021 Shareholder Letter

Nearly two years into the pandemic, it's now clear that we are undergoing the biggest change to travel since the advent of commercial flying. Remote work has untethered many people from the need to be in an office every day. As a result, people are spreading out to thousands of towns and cities, staying for weeks, months, or even entire seasons at a time. For the first time ever, millions of people can now live anywhere.

We see this happening on Airbnb. Nearly half of our nights booked in Q4 were for stays of a week or longer. One in five nights booked were for stays of a month or longer. And in the past year alone, Airbnb guests stayed in about 100,000 towns and cities around the world, with nearly 175,000 of them booking stays for three months or longer.

The reason we've been able to respond to this changing world of travel is because our model is inherently adaptable. We have millions of Airbnb Hosts who offer nearly every type of home in nearly every community around the world. But it's not just our model-it's also our culture of relentless innovation that's allowed us to respond to this moment. In just the last year alone, we made more than 150 upgrades and innovations across every aspect of the Airbnb service. This explains why we had our best year in our company's history, despite still being in the midst of a pandemic.

In 2021, we delivered $47 billion of GBV, 23% higher than the pre-pandemic year of 2019, and $6 billion in revenue, 25% higher than 2019. Meanwhile, our focus and discipline in managing the business resulted in $1.6 billion of Adjusted EBITDA, or 27% Adjusted EBITDA margin-a striking improvement from negative 5% Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2019.1

But we're not stopping there. In 2022, we will accelerate our pace of innovation as millions of people

live in Airbnbs for weeks, months, or entire seasons at a time. Following in the footsteps of our community, CEO Brian Chesky recently announced that he'll also be living on Airbnb, staying in a different town or city every couple of weeks. His journey started in Atlanta, and with 6 million active listings around the world the possibilities are endless-just like they are for millions of guests who can now live anywhere.

Q4 2021 and full-year 2021 financial results

Here is a snapshot of our Q4 2021 and full-year results:

  • Q4 revenue of $1.5 billion was 38% higher than Q4 2019. It also exceeded Q4 2020 revenue by nearly 80%. Both year-over-two-year and year-over-year revenue growth rates were further improvements from those achieved in Q3 2021 of 36% and 67%, respectively, despite the impact of Omicron in December 2021. Overall, 2021 has proven to be an incredible year demonstrating the resiliency of the business, with 25% year-over-two-year revenue growth.
  • Q4 net income of $55 million was a record for the fourth quarter. Net income in Q4 2021 increased by $406 million over a net loss in Q4 2019 due to our revenue growth and continued expense discipline. Net income in Q4 2021 improved by $3.9 billion compared to Q4 2020 due primarily to the absence of one-time expenses related to our December 2020 IPO and our revenue recovery. For the full year 2021, net loss improved $322 million compared to the same period in 2019.

1 A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is provided at the end of this letter.

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  • Q4 Adjusted EBITDA of $333 million was our most profitable fourth quarter ever. Adjusted EBITDA in Q4 2021 of $333 million was our highest Q4 ever, increasing significantly from losses in both
    Q4 2020 and Q4 2019. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22% for Q4 2021. For the full year 2021, Adjusted EBITDA margin was 27%. This substantial improvement in Adjusted EBITDA demonstrates the continued strength of our business, as well as a significantly improved cost structure.2

Business Highlights

Through the adaptability of our model and continued innovation, we were able to close out 2021 with our strongest Q4 ever. Despite the headwinds from Omicron, GBV was $11.3 billion in Q4, representing 32% growth compared to Q4 2019 attributable to nights booked recovering and strength in ADR.

Our strong 2021 performance was driven by a number of positive business trends:

  • Guests are discovering thousands of small towns and rural communities on Airbnb. Domestic and non-urban travel have grown throughout the pandemic, with non-urban gross nights booked up nearly 45% compared to Q4 2019.
  • Guests are also returning to cities. Gross nights booked growth at urban destinations in Q4 2021 accelerated from Q3 2021 and have nearly recovered to Q4 2019 levels. In the U.S., gross nights booked for urban travel were up compared to Q4 2019. Finally, cross-border travel continues to recover and has accelerated each quarter in 2021, recovering to nearly 35% of global gross nights booked in Q4 2021, up from 20% in Q1 2021.
  • Guests are planning more travel despite variants and surges. The impact of Omicron on bookings and cancellations was lower than we experienced with Delta last summer, which was also significantly lower than the impact of the surge in COVID cases in EMEA, in particular,
    in Q4 2020. Specifically, gross nights booked in December 2021 grew more than 40% from 2020, and the cancellation rate for December trips was lower than a year ago. And despite the continued near-term uncertainties, we see evidence of strong pent-up demand: as of the end of January 2022, we had over 25% more nights booked for the summer travel season than at this time in 2019.
  • Guests aren't just traveling on Airbnb-they're living on Airbnb. Over the last two years, we have seen the average trip length increase by approximately 15%, with stays of more than 7 days now representing nearly half of all gross nights booked. Meanwhile, long-term stays of 28 nights or more remained our fastest growing category by trip length and accounted for 22% of gross nights booked in Q4, up 16% from Q4 2019. The longer guests stay, the more we believe they value the amenities and convenience of staying in a home. Meanwhile, Hosts are responding to this demand for longer stays, as the percentage of active listings accepting stays of 28 nights or longer was over 90% at the end of Q4.
  • We're relentlessly innovating to support this new way of traveling. We designed over 150 upgrades to our platform throughout 2021. For example, we launched I'm Flexible, a new way to search
    on Airbnb when you are flexible about where or when you travel. To attract and support new Hosts,

2 A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is provided at the end of this letter.

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we simplified the process to become a Host and created Ask a Superhost-1:1 support from our Superhosts. In November, we launched AirCover, top-to-bottom protection, free for every Airbnb Host, only on Airbnb.

  • Our Host community is growing to meet the travel demand. Our Host community is larger than ever, with 6 million active listings at the end of 2021. Hosts continue to thrive, earning
    a record $34 billion in 2021. Growth in Host supply has followed the rebound in guest demand, with global total active listings consistently growing quarter over quarter since Q1 2021.
    We continue to see the greatest growth in supply where we see the greatest growth in demand, including active listings growth of 20% year-over-year in non-urban destinations in North America.

Wrapping up 2021

For 2021, our single priority was to prepare for the travel rebound. To do this, we worked on perfecting our existing product. Over the course of the year, we made significant improvements to the end-to-end experience of our core service for both Hosts and guests, focusing on the following areas:

  • Educating the world about what makes Airbnb different-hosting
  • Recruiting more Hosts and setting them up for success
  • Simplifying the guest journey
  • Delivering world-class service

Educating the world about Airbnb

Early in 2021, we launched our first large-scale marketing campaign in five years, Made possible by Hosts. Through the campaign, we highlighted the unique experience of being hosted on Airbnb, as well as inspiring more people to become Hosts. To continue the momentum of this campaign, we launched new ads for the fall season. In Q4, overall traffic to our platform increased almost 20% in the seven countries where we ran the campaign compared to Q4 2019-significantly ahead of non-campaign countries.

In Q4 2021, we also launched our latest ad campaign, Strangers, featuring three unusual-looking, shaggy "guests" in an Airbnb listing, demonstrating that strangers really aren't that strange after all.

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Airbnb Inc. published this content on 15 February 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 15 February 2022 21:17:25 UTC.