Airbnb keeps beating records. The company announced that for the first time it has surpassed the seven million listings, establishing itself as the leading platform with the largest number of accommodations in the world, way ahead of Booking.com (5.7 million) and Vrbo (2 million).
“There are more than 7 million listings in over 100,000 cities, more listings than the eight largest hotel groups have rooms. In 2019, we reported that nearly 1,000 cities have more than 1,000 Airbnb listings; back in 2011, only 12 cities did,” stated Airbnb representative.
If however hotel rooms are included, the number of Booking.com accommodations soars to 29 million, a gap that Airbnb is trying to reduce after its acquisition of HotelTonight last March, an online travel app for last-minute bookings.
Airbnb highlights that the growth of the community has boosted the business. “In the second quarter of 2019, Airbnb recognized substantially more than $ 1 billion [around 900 million euros] in revenue. The second quarter of 2019 marked the second quarter in our history in which Airbnb revenue exceeded $1 billion,” said the representative.
Airbnb explains this trend with figures: six guests check into an Airbnb listing every second, and these check-ins are happening all around the world. “No single city accounts for more than roughly 1% of Airbnb guest arrivals or listings.”
The company does not break out important numbers, such as annual revenue and profit data, although it recently confirmed that it obtained positive gross profit margins in both 2017 and 2018. As of now, Airbnb is one of the technology giants set to go public next year and it is expected the rental platform could be valued up to $ 31 billion.