Nasdaq-100® Inside the Index: Airbnb (ABNB)
Key Figures
- $13.2B - Revenue, trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2026
- $27.2B - Gross booking value, Q2 2026
- 533M - Nights and seats booked, FY2025
- 38% - Free cash flow margin, FY2025
- Approximately 26.8x - Forward P/E as of October 14, 2026
Nasdaq-100 Inside the Index | Vol. 1 | Issue 30 | November 2026
Airbnb owns no homes and no hotels, yet it books both. Of every $100 guests paid in FY2025, it kept about $13.
ABNB · Consumer Discretionary · Nasdaq-100 Index Constituent
This Issue — ABNB
Airbnb, a current Nasdaq-100® constituent at ~0.29% index weight as of October 14, 2026, runs the app and website where a traveler books a spare room, an apartment or a house from the person who owns it, and where that owner lists it as one of more than 5.5 million hosts. It has added boutique hotels, guided experiences and services such as airport pickups and grocery delivery. The company is based in San Francisco, California, and is led by CEO Brian Chesky.
Business Model & Revenue Drivers
A Marketplace That Keeps a Share of Each Booking
Hosts list homes, guests book them, and Airbnb keeps a fee from both sides. In FY2025, guests paid $91.3B for stays, experiences and services booked on the platform (gross booking value), and Airbnb recorded $12.2B of that as revenue (per company disclosures). That take rate, about 13.4%, compares with 12.8% in FY2021 (per Bloomberg research).
Owning no property, it needs little capital: spending on property and equipment was $34M in FY2024 (per Bloomberg research), and free cash flow was $4.6B in FY2025 (per company disclosures). North America brought in $5.5B of the $13.2B earned over the twelve months ended June 30, 2026 (per Bloomberg research).
Competitive Moat
Brand Recognition, Hosts and Direct Traffic
Bloomberg research estimates Airbnb held about 44% of the short-term rental market as of 2024, up from 28% in 2019. It ended 2025 with more than 9 million active listings and reports more than 5.5 million hosts, who had welcomed more than 2.5 billion guest arrivals as of June 30, 2026 (per company filings). About 98% of its traffic arrives directly, by typing the name or opening the app, rather than through paid search (per Bloomberg research).
According to company disclosures and Bloomberg research, that brand recognition, the host base and the direct traffic may create barriers to entry for some competitors.
Operating Strengths
Three Operating Measures
- Revenue reached $3.61B in Q2 2026, above the $3.58B Bloomberg consensus estimate. Nights and seats booked grew 10% year over year to 148 million (per company filings).
- Nights booked through the app grew 23% year over year and made up 64% of the total, up from 59% a year earlier; first-time booker growth of 11% was the fastest pace in four years (per company disclosures).
- About 83 cents of each FY2024 revenue dollar remained after the direct costs of running the platform, up from 80.7% in FY2021 (per Bloomberg research).
Growth Catalysts
Hotels, Experiences and an AI Assistant That Handles Support
Nearly 60% of the code Airbnb’s engineers write is now co-authored with AI, and the company shipped nearly 80% more features and improvements in the first half of 2026 than a year earlier (per company disclosures). Its AI assistant now resolves nearly 45% of the customer-service issues that start with it, with no human agent involved, and support cost per booking fell about 16% year over year in Q2 2026.
Hotels. Hotel nights booked grew about three times as fast as the homes business in Q2 2026 (per company disclosures). Bloomberg research estimates its share of online hotel bookings in its five core markets could reach about 8% by 2028, from about 4%.
Experiences and services. Experiences supply grew nearly 80% year over year in Q2 2026; grocery delivery and airport pickups were added (per company disclosures).
Sponsored listings. A phased rollout is expected to begin in 2027 and could add about $1.5B of revenue by 2029 (Bloomberg research estimates).
Historical Context
Revenue From FY2021 to the Last 12 Months
Revenue rose from $6.0B in FY2021 to $12.2B in FY2025 (per company disclosures), and reached $13.2B over the twelve months ended June 30, 2026 (per Bloomberg research). Over FY2021 to FY2025 the company went from a net loss of $352M to net income of $2.5B, while nights growth slowed from 31% to 8%.
NIGHTS & SEATS BOOKED (FY2021 TO FY2025) 301M → 533M · 1.8×
GROSS BOOKING VALUE (FY2021 TO FY2025) $46.9B → $91.3B · 1.9×
FREE CASH FLOW (FY2021 TO FY2025) $2.3B → $4.6B · 2.0×
Nearly half the support cases that start with Airbnb’s AI assistant end there. No human agent is needed.
Valuation & Investment Thesis
The Multiple and the Balance Sheet
At $166.26 on 10/14/2026, the shares trade at approximately 26.8× forward earnings (per Bloomberg research). Airbnb pays no dividend and held $6.8B in cash and $5.2B in short-term investments against $2.5B of debt at June 30, 2026 (per company filings).
Free cash flow was $4.8B over the twelve months ended June 30, 2026, and the company bought back $1.1B of its own shares in Q2 2026 (per company disclosures). At approximately 26.8× forward earnings, investors may consider whether growth in hotels, experiences and services supports current valuation levels.
Key Risks
What Could Change the Story
- Regulation. The European Union plans to let national and local authorities curb short-term rentals; cities such as Cape Town are raising rates on them (per Bloomberg research).
- Competition. Booking.com and Expedia compete for hosts and guests, and Google is expanding into alternative accommodations (per Bloomberg research).
- Travel demand. A return to hotels, a weaker economy or soft inbound US travel could slow nights booked (per Bloomberg research).
- Currency. With about 55% of revenue earned outside the US, exchange-rate moves influence reported results (per Bloomberg research).
- New businesses. Hotels, experiences and sponsored listings are early-stage and may grow more slowly than expected (per Bloomberg research).
What This Means For You
The Index Angle, in Plain Terms
In Your Index Fund — If you hold a fund that tracks the Nasdaq-100 Index®, you already own this.
- Index composition follows transparent eligibility criteria, and ABNB is a current constituent at ~0.29% index weight as of October 14, 2026: about 29 cents of every $100 tracking the Nasdaq-100 sits in Airbnb.
- During the FIFA World Cup 2026, more than 150,000 homes across the host cities were listed on Airbnb for the first time (per company disclosures).
- A hotel booked on Airbnb often leads to a home: about 35% of guests who first booked a hotel between July 2024 and June 2025 came back to book a home within a year (per company disclosures).
Decoding the Jargon
Two terms doing the heavy lifting in this issue.
- Gross booking value. The dollar value of bookings, including host earnings, fees and taxes; $27.2B in Q2 2026 (per company filings).
- Take rate. Revenue as a share of gross booking value, the slice Airbnb keeps; 13.6% in Q4 2025 (per company disclosures).
Bottom Line
Nasdaq-100®, Airbnb owns no homes. More than 5.5 million hosts supply them.
About the Series
The Nasdaq-100® is a globally recognized index of 100 of the most innovative large cap companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market®. The Inside the Index series profiles one constituent each issue, from software to soft drinks and computer chips to potato chips, exploring what makes each business distinctive and the metrics investors should know.
Sources
NASDAQ GLOBAL INDEXES. AIRBNB SEC FILINGS VIA SEC EDGAR: FORM 10-K ANNUAL REPORTS, FORM 10-Q QUARTERLY REPORTS; AIRBNB INVESTOR RELATIONS FINANCIALS; AIRBNB Q2 2026 SHAREHOLDER LETTER; AIRBNB Q2 2026 FORM 10-Q (QUARTER ENDED JUNE 30, 2026), Q4 2025, Q1 2026 AND Q2 2026 SHAREHOLDER LETTERS, AND Q2 2026 EARNINGS CALL (AUGUST 6, 2026). TTM IS THE TWELVE MONTHS ENDED JUNE 30, 2026. MARKET SHARE, HISTORICAL FINANCIALS, VALUATION MULTIPLES, FORWARD ESTIMATES, DIRECT-TRAFFIC MIX AND RISK FACTORS PER BLOOMBERG RESEARCH AND BLOOMBERG CONSENSUS ESTIMATES. DATA AS OF 10/14/2026.
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