Cruise

Carnival Corporation Reports Record Q3 Earnings

carnival-Sept7

Carnival Corporation & plc has reported a net income of US$1.4 billion, or $1.93 diluted EPS, for the third quarter of 2016, the strongest quarterly earnings in the company’s history.

Revenues for the third quarter of 2016 were US$5.1 billion, US$0.2 billion higher than the US$4.9 billion in the prior year.

Carnival Corporation president and chief executive officer Arnold Donald noted, “We delivered the strongest quarterly earnings in our company’s history affirming our ongoing efforts to expand consumer demand in excess of measured capacity increases and leverage our industry leading scale. Revenues during the peak summer season were bolstered by strong performances from both our North American and European brands and across all major deployments including the Caribbean, Alaska and Europe.

Highlights during the third quarter included the opening of the Arison Maritime Center in Almere, Netherlands, named for Carnival Corporation & plc chairman Micky Arison and his father, the late Ted Arison, who founded the company. The 110,000-sq.-ft. purpose built facility is a major expansion from the existing training centre that opened in 2009. The centre will provide comprehensive safety and skills training for bridge and engineering officers. The facility includes four bridge and engine room simulators and is expected to train over 6,500 officers annually across the company’s 10 brands.

The company also signed a memorandum of agreement with shipbuilders Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku for the construction of three new 180,000-ton cruise ships. Two of the ships, to be built in Finland, will be added to the Carnival Cruise Line fleet in 2020 and 2022. The third ship, to be constructed in Germany, will join the P&O Cruises UK fleet in 2020.

Looking ahead, cumulative advance bookings for the first half of 2017 are ahead of the prior year at considerably higher prices. The company continues to expect full year 2016 net revenue yields to be up approximately 3.5% compared to the prior year.

“We are well on track to deliver nearly 25% earnings growth in 2016. With cash from operations expected to reach a record US$5 billion this year, we continue to fund our growth and return cash to shareholders,” added Donald. “During the third quarter we repurchased US$700 million of Carnival Corporation shares bringing the cumulative total to US$2.5 billion in share repurchases over the past year. Looking forward, we are well positioned for continued earnings growth given the current strength of our booking and pricing trends in 2017.”

(http://www.carnivalcorp.com)