Priceline Group Conference Call Highlights

Priceline Group Inc.

reported its second quarter earnings on Monday. Shares of the company are up 3.30 percent. Below are some key highlights from its conference call: Growth and Results: • The Group reported consolidated gross bookings for the second quarter of approximately $13.5 billion, up 34% year-over-year • Earnings per share was $12.51, up 29% versus prior year. • Priceline.com posted solid 21% growth in gross bookings with strong results in its retail offerings. • The Name Your Own Price business however continues to be under pressured. • Rentalcars.com delivered good results and what has become a more competitively intense marketplace. • Success on mobile remains critical to all of our brands. • Mobile has become a very material and fast growing booking channel for the group. • China is also critical for the future. • As we announced last week, the group expanded its relationship with Ctrip, the largest online travel agency in China. • Q2 was a strong quarter from a top and bottom line perspective. • Our Q2 international gross bookings grew by 36% in U.S. dollars Booking.com's: • Booking.com's platform now is over 525,000 hotels and other accommodations in 205 countries • reflecting Booking.com's continued aggressive push to extend its lead as the world's largest brand for booking accommodation. • Another area of investment and innovation for Booking.com has been vacation rentals. • We are rapidly expanding our footprint of vacation rentals, and we now have over 190,000 directly bookable self-catered properties. • In the last 12 months, our customers spent over $4 billion on vacation rental, they booked primarily through Booking.com. KAYAK: • Targeted expansion in Europe, with the dedicated offline advertising presence. • We look forward to building the KAYAK's franchise across Europe, in an aggressive, but profitable manner. Guidance: • Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $1.265 billion, and $1.365 billion, which at the midpoint represents 18% growth versus prior year. • We are targeting non-GAAP fully diluted EPS of approximately $19.60 to $21.10 per share. • We forecast GAAP EPS between $17.86 and $19.36 per share for Q3. • In summary, we believe that our forecast reflects another quarter where we would sustain our market leading top-line growth rates while maintaining strong bottom line growth and market leading profit margins.