Carnival reports record revenue for its fiscal Q1

Carnival Corp (NYSE: CCL) is roughly flat in premarket on Wednesday after reporting narrower than expected loss for its first financial quarter.

Carnival’s guidance for fiscal Q2

Investors are cheering also because $CCL issued upbeat guidance for the future. Carnival now forecasts its adjusted EBITDA to print at $1.05 billion in Q2 – up more than 50% excluding impact of the recent Baltimore bridge incident.

Net yields, it expects, will be up 10.5% in the second quarter. Josh Weinstein – the chief executive of Carnival Corp said in a press release today:

We have conviction in delivering record revenues and EBITDA, along with a step change improvement in operating performance, and have begun turning more of our attention to delivering an even stronger 2025.

Wall Street currently has a consensus “overweight” rating on Carnival stock that does not currently pay a dividend yield.

Carnival Q1 earnings snapshot

• Lost $214 million versus the year-ago $693 million
• Per-share loss also narrowed from 55 cents to 17 cents
• Adjusted loss printed at 14 cents per share as per the earnings report
• Revenue climbed 22% year-over-year to $5.40 billion
• Consensus was 18 cents a share loss on $5.40 billion revenue

Other notable figures in the earnings report include occupancy at 102% for the fourth quarter and total customer deposits at an all-time high of $7.0 billion. CEO Weinstein also said on Wednesday:

Even with less inventory available for the remainder of the year, booking volumes hit an all-time high, driven by demand for 2025 sailings and beyond.

Ahead of the earnings, analysts at Mizuho said Carnival stock was a top pick for 2024.