Carnival Q1 23 – 22/03 – the cruise industry like most in the travel sector has had a difficult three years and having seen a modest stabilisation in the share price in 2021, the shares continued to struggle due to the stop-start nature of the recovery in overseas travel. Over the last 12 months, the shares plunged again, hitting a 30-year low back in October. Since then, early indications suggest we may well have found a short-term base, the shares more than doubling from those lows.
In Q4 Carnival posted a smaller-than-expected loss of -$0.85c a share, even as revenues fell short of expectations. Investors appeared to be encouraged by a more optimistic outlook for the upcoming financial year. Carnival said at the time it expected to see Q1 capacity growth of 3.7% and for losses to continue to come down with an expectation that Q1 losses will halve to around $800m. There still remains a long way to go however given that pre-pandemic in 2019, annual revenues were $20.8bn, while last year they came in at $12.17bn. The hope is that 2023 is the year that annual revenues return to the levels they were in 2019, with expectations this current year of $20.99bn.
