Spain's Amadeus quarterly profit beats forecasts, confirms outlook

By Jakub Olesiuk and Matteo Allievi

(Reuters) -Spanish travel booking group Amadeus posted a 25% jump in second-quarter profit on Wednesday, beating forecasts, and said it was on track to meet its full-year outlook.

Amadeus' adjusted net profit for the April to June period came in at 358.9 million euros ($388.26 million), ahead of Refinitiv-polled analysts who had forecast 337 million euros, supported by revenue growth in all its segments.

"We continued to grow at a double-digit pace throughout the first half of the year and we remain confident in our outlook for 2024", CEO Luis Maroto said in a statement.

In February, the company said it expected full-year revenue growth of between 11.0% and 14.5%.

Revenue rose almost 13% to 1.56 billion euros in the second quarter, boosted by higher revenue per booking in the air distribution segment.

Shares traded up 2% at 0824 GMT.

Amadeus has benefited from a rebound in global travel since the pandemic, but some airlines have recently missed or cut earnings forecasts amid rising costs and signs the post-COVID demand in travel is fading.

Spain's fifth-largest listed company by market capitalisation expects slower booking growth in the third quarter compared to the second, but expects a rebound in the last three months of the year.

The company said air bookings from April to June rose at a slower pace at 3% to 117.2 million compared to the same period last year, citing normalization in global air traffic growth.

However, GVC Gaesco analyst Juan Pena believes Amadeus' business is strong and stability in bookings is compensated by an increase in booking revenue.

Asia-Pacific reported the fastest growth, while North America lagged due to a negative impact of the direct connections in the region, holiday effects and bankruptcy of tour operator FTI Group.

IATA expects global passenger traffic to rise 10.4% in 2024 compared to a year earlier with Asia Pacific driving the growth.

($1 = 0.9244 euros)

(Reporting by Jakub Olesiuk and Matteo Allievi, editing by Sarah Young and David Evans)