What To Expect From TripAdvisor’s Stock Post Q1 Release?

Tripadvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP), an online travel company providing booking for hotel reservations, transportation, lodging, travel experiences, and restaurants, is scheduled to announce its fiscal first-quarter results on Thursday, May 6. We expect Tripadvisor’s
TRIP
stock to likely trade lower post Q1 results with both revenues and earnings missing consensus estimates. The company’s revenue declined nearly 23% from $151 million in Q3 2020 to $116 million in Q4 2020. In fact, these revenues were still down 65% from year-ago quarter levels in Q4 – as Tripadvisor saw uneven travel recovery trends with major parts of the world under lockdown. In addition, we expect this trend to extend into the first half of fiscal 2021 as well. Air travel and vacation likely won’t fully recover until the Covid-19 threat has passed. That said, it might be a year or even longer before Tripadvisor begins to show operating trends similar to the 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

Our forecast indicates that Tripadvisor’s valuation is at $43 per share, which is 10% lower than the current market price of $47. Look at our interactive dashboard analysis on Tripadvisor Pre-Earnings: What To Expect in Q1? for more details.

(1) Revenues expected to miss consensus estimates

Trefis estimates Tripadvisor’s Q1 2021 revenues to be around $117 Mil, 3% below the consensus estimate. In 2020, Tripadvisor’s revenues declined 61% year-over-year (y-o-y). However, it is also worth mentioning that monthly unique users on Tripadvisor websites grew from only 33% in April to 59% in December of the prior year’s comparable periods in 2020. Traffic trends on its websites improved since the onset of the pandemic, suggesting that consumers are rather interested to travel now but are hesitant to book their plans.

Tripadvisor has been looking at a recurring revenue stream and has launched its new Tripadvisor Plus subscription service earlier this year. This direct-to-consumer subscription service will offer consumers discounts on hotels and travel attractions (at a fee of $99 per year) which could likely help the company recover post-Covid. For the full year 2021, we expect Tripadvisor revenues to rise 50% y-o-y to $0.9 billion.

(2) EPS likely to marginally miss consensus estimates

Tripadvisor’s Q1 2021 earnings per share is expected to come in at a loss of 36 cents as per Trefis analysis, marginally lower than the consensus estimate of -32 cents. In 2020, the company’s EPS came in at a loss of $2.14, compared to a profit of 91 cents in 2019. We expect Tripadvisor to likely continue to underperform the broader travel market due to increased competition from Google
GOOG
and Airbnb, and weaker margins (-55% op. margin in 2020). While the company has a strong balance sheet to safeguard it from the current downturn (a cash balance of $418 million, another $1 billion in liquidity, and an outstanding debt of $490 million), there are still too many potential stumbling blocks on the road to recovery.

(3) Stock price estimate lower than the current market price

Going by our Tripadvisor’s Valuation, with a revenue per share estimate of around $6.48 and a P/S multiple of around 6.6x in fiscal 2021, this translates into a price of $43, which is nearly 10% lower than the current market price of around $47.

It is helpful to see how its peers stack up. Check out Tripadvisor Stock Comparison With Peers to see how Tripadvisor compares against peers on metrics that matter.

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