Booking vs Airbnb: a Stock Duel

Which one will book your next holidays?

Booking and Airbnb may have similare business models in the same sectors, there is a crucial difference:

• Booking is linking hotels with customer (B2B2C - Business-to-Business-to-Consumer)

• Airbnb is linking individual landlors (C2B2C - Consumer-to-Business-to-Consumer)

This difference creates several advantages and drawbacks for each:

• Airbnb moat is higher as the network effect it has created is harder to recreate

• Booking is less vulnerable to regulatory risks

However both perform quite well with the rating system with scores of 7.4 and 7.5. Booking is slightly ahead of Airbnb, mainly due to a more generous shareholder treatment but of course, if someone wants to invest in these companies, the investment style will affect this choice:

• Airbnb is growing faster and has a higher quality (better ROIC, positive net cash position, …)

• Booking is cheaper and has better shareholder return policy (and is more than decent for growth and quality)

In conclusion, both seems nice. Which one do you prefer?

If you like stock duels, you can find here the previous ones:

• Here for Visa vs Mastercard

• Here for Cadence vs Synopsys

• Here for Coca-Cola vs Pepsico

• Here for S&P Global vs Moody’s