Carnival PLC on Friday said it swung to a full-year profit as the firm benefitted from a ‘strong demand environment’.

The Florida, US-based cruise ship operator reported an on-year swing to a pretax profit of $1.92 billion from a $62 million loss, with adjusted net income of $1.89 billion outperforming September guidance by over $130 million.

Carnival’s improved profit was driven a by 16% increase in revenue over the same period to $25.0 billion, an all-time high, from $21.2 billion, bolstered by a record fourth quarter, with revenue up 10% year-on-year to $5.9 billion from $5.4 billion.

Carnival credited its record fourth-quarter to ‘higher ticket prices, higher onboard spending and improved costs’, adding that bookings volumes for the period improved on-year ‘with less inventory available’ and ‘despite the traditionally slower period around the election.’.

Divisionally, both Carnival’s Passenger Ticket and Onboard & Other segments saw on-year improvements in revenue figures for the full-year and fourth quarter.

For financial year 2025, Carnival expects to achieve adjusted net income of approximately $2.3 billion, over 20 percent higher than 2024’s $1.9 billion. It also anticipates adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of approximately $6.6 billion, up approximately $500 million from 2024’s record $6.1 billion.

Carnival Chief Executive Josh Weinstein said: ‘This has been an incredibly strong finish to a record year. Revenues hit an all-time high driven by a strong demand environment that we elevated throughout the year, enabling us to outperform our initial 2024 guidance by $700 million and deliver nearly $2 billion more to the bottom line, year over year.

‘The progress was broad based as we drove strong pricing in 2024 as compared to 2023 across our major cruise lines and trades.’

‘We are delivering long-term value for our shareholders through improved operational execution across our brands, essentially on a same ship basis. We ended 2024 with adjusted ROIC of 11 percent, comfortably above our cost of capital. In fact, with one year down, we’re already over 80 percent of the way toward achieving our 2026 SEA Change Ebitda and adjusted ROIC targets,’ Weinstein continued.

Its shares were 4.4% higher at 1,901.00 pence each on Friday in London.

Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved