Carnival (CCL) Tops Q4 Earnings On Both Counts

Carnival Corporation (CCL – Free Report) operates as a cruise and vacation company. Notably, Carnival’s cruise ships offer various itineraries to passengers under leading cruise brands through its four primary segments — North America cruise brands, EAA cruise brands, Cruise Support and Tour and Other.

Carnival has adopted a strategy to grow beyond its familiar itineraries and capitalize on Asian opportunities. Moreover, strong marketing initiatives have been helping the company to keep its booking strong over the past few years at most of its itineraries, thereby resulting in improvement in revenue yields. Also, consistent efforts to reduce fuel consumption have aided the company to generate profits.

However, negative currency translation, macroeconomic issues like geopolitical uncertainties, as well as increased marketing expenses remain potent headwinds.

Investors should note that the consensus estimate for CCL has been stable over the last 30 days. Meanwhile, CCL’s earnings have been strong over the past few quarters. In fact, the company’s earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all of the last four quarters, with an average beat of 9.7%. Revenues also posted positive surprises in all of the trailing four quarters.

Carnival Corporation Price

Carnival Corporation Price | Carnival Corporation Quote

CCL currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) but that could change following Carnival’s earnings report which was just released. 

We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:

Earnings: CCL beats on earnings. Our consensus earnings estimate called for earnings per share of 50 cents, and the company reported earnings of 63 cents per share. Investors should note that these figures take out stock option expenses.

Revenues: CCL reported revenues of $4.3 billion. This surpassed our consensus estimate of $4.2 billion.

Key Stats to Note: On a constant dollar basis, net revenue yields (net revenue per available lower berth day) increased 4.2% in fourth-quarter fiscal 2017, which topped the company’s September guidance of roughly 1.5% to 2% growth.