Priceline.com Trades Higher on Q1 Earnings Results (PCLN)

Shares of Priceline.com Incorporated PCLN are trading higher in the after-hours following the release of its Q1 earnings results. Currently, shares are up 2.74%, trading at $548.60; they closed the regular session down 0.67 %, at $533.97. The company said that its Q1 EPS came in at $2.66 on revenues of $809.3 million; this compares to the Street's estimate of $2.46 per share on revenues of $779.5 million. Revenues rose 38.6% year over year. "In the 1st quarter, the Group benefited from strong growth in our global hotel business, particularly at Booking.com and Agoda," said Jeffery H. Boyd, Priceline President and Chief Executive Officer. He added, "Room nights booked grew by 55.8% and our international gross bookings grew by 79% compared to prior year first quarter. The Group's hotel business continues to benefit from improving ADRs, a continuing shift from offline to online bookings, increased penetration of core European and North American markets and outstanding growth in new markets throughout the Asia-Pacific region and South America." Priceline.com Incorporated is a global online travel company that offers its customers a range of travel services, including the opportunity to purchase hotel room reservations, car rentals, airline tickets, vacation packages, cruises and destination services in a price-disclosed manner. It also offers its Name Your Own Price service that helps its customers to use the Internet to save money by allowing them to make offers for travel services at prices they set, while enabling sellers, which include many of the domestic hotel, airline and rental car companies, to generate revenue. It offers its customers hotel room reservations at over 150,000 hotels worldwide through the Booking.com, priceline.com and Agoda brands.