airbnb inc said tuesday that it had its first profitable second quarter as a public company and that it is so confident in its business that it is buying back 2 billion of its stock “our q2 results demonstrate that airbnb has achieved growth and profitability at scale” chief executive brian chesky said during prepared remarks on the company’s earnings call airbnb abnb shares fell as much as 95 after hours after rising nearly 5 in the regular session to close at 11634 they have increased 14 over the past five days the lodgingbooking company reported secondquarter net income of 379 million or 56 cents a share compared with a loss of 68 million or 11 cents a share in the yearago period revenue rose to 219 billion from 134 billion in the yearago quarter analysts surveyed by factset had forecast earnings of 45 cents a share on revenue of 21 billion airbnb said demand for travel is strong almost everywhere the company’s gross bookings amounted to 17 billion up 27 year over year and 73 higher compared with the prepandemic 2019 quarter customers booked 1037 million nights and experiences the highest ever and up 24 compared with the 2019 quarter gross nights booked for crossborder travel continued to beat prepandemic levels and doubled compared to the yearago quarter the company said those numbers fell short of analysts’ expectations though of 1062 million nights and experiences booked and 1713 billion in gross bookings the company also reported that its free cash flow for the second quarter was 795 million its highest for a second quarter that brings its total cash on hand to nearly 10 billion on the conference call chief financial officer dave stephenson said the company doesn’t need that much cash on hand which is why it is buying back shares he and chesky both said they remain committed to growing the business and will continue to invest in adding to the employee headcount by a high singledigit percentage this year airbnb expects thirdquarter revenue of 278 billion to 288 billion which it says it expects to be its highest yet it also expects adjusted ebitda to be its highest yet though it did not provide a number analysts on average had forecast earnings of 129 a share on revenue of 277 billion and adjusted ebitda of 126 billion according to factset in response to analysts on the call who wanted to know about possible macroeconomic effects on the business stephenson said “we don’t know what the economy is going to bring but we do know airbnb is resilient” he noted that the company has different kinds of property listings that it had “already made hard choices” in laying off employees at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and that it is “a leaner tighter machine” the company said the asia pacific region “remained depressed” compared with the same period prepandemic and stephenson expressed optimism about the upside once it catches up with other regions’ recovery yipitdata which tracks active airbnb listings said it saw yearoveryear growth in june in all regions except for china where the company has pulled all its listings because of difficulties in doing business there it announced in may june listings in north america rose 19 year over year two regions latin america and the middle east and africa each saw 14 growth in june listings according to yipitdata shares of airbnb have fallen about 30 so far this year by comparison the sp 500 index spx has seen a 13 drop year to date