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April 3, according to foreign media, Fox Business << / a> Reported that Airbnb reduced its valuation to US $ 26 billion from US $ 31 billion in 2017, a decrease of 16%, due to the drop in bookings due to the epidemic. Judging from the fact that Airbnb was affected by the epidemic, which caused the valuation to be lowered, Airbnb has received two huge sums of USD 1 billion in just two weeks, which does not rule out the possibility that all capitals want to bargain.

Re-examine Airbnb ’s business model

From Airbnb ’s business model canvas analysis, the company ’s nine business operations elements are relatively clear. Airbnb’s business model is simply to be an intermediary, to connect landlords and tenants, provide intermediary services, and then earn commission income. In this process, the company avoided self-employed cost investment and occupation of funds.

Canvas analysis of “Airbnb” business model

Objectively speaking, Airbnb ’s business model also conflicts with the laws of many countries, such as Thailand, Japan and Germany, which do not allow short-term rental of individual residences , Even thought it was an illegal business model. In addition, Airbnb rented the house to strangers, which caused many criminal incidents and exposed the safety issues of the platform. Airbnb ’s stranger sharing model, the resulting security and legal issues are also worthy of our re-examination of the feasibility of its business model. < / strong>

According to AirDNA data, in the first two months of 2020, Airbnb ’s bookings in major cities such as Beijing, Seoul, Rome, and Milan have dropped sharply, among which Beijing ’s Reservations fell by 96%.

Let ’s take a look at Airbnb ’s Fourth Quarter 2019 a> —— Bloomberg reported that Airbnb’s EBITDA in the fourth quarter lost $ 276.4 million, a decrease of 92.3%. But Airbnb’s revenue in the fourth quarter went up by 32%, reaching $ 1.1 billion. In this regard, although Airbnb said that the increase in marketing expenses led to a sharp decline in performance, but Airbnb’s losses are objective, and the company’s profitability will inevitably cause some doubts.

It is worth noting that the financial data for the fourth quarter was generated before the epidemic occurred, which can also explain to a certain extent that Airbnb ’s profitability has not been proven.

Look closely at where Airbnb ’s losses come from?

• The maintenance and upgrade of the website cost about 100 million US dollars annually;
   

• Airbnb has acquired the travel website Accomable, the advertising technology company AdBasis, the hotel reservation website HotelTonight, the housing service platform Urbandoor and Gaest.com, a hotel reservation website, aims to build a one-stop travel platform;
   

• Airbnb has a large amount of legal expenses every year, such as the Halloween shooting in 2019, the company also made a large amount of compensation;
   

• In order to gain the favor of investors after going public, the company needs to spend a lot of marketing costs in the early stage.
  

  Comparing the financial data of Airbnb and its three competitors Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor in the fourth quarter: Booking Holdings ’alternative accommodation business is second only to Airbnb, in fact, the short-term Rental income is roughly comparable, but Booking Holdings reported alternative accommodation income of $ 3.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, four times that of Airbnb.

  We can also see that in addition to Airbnb, the other three companies have achieved single-digit growth in the fourth quarter of EBITDA, but Airbnb’s revenue growth rate has reached 32%, far exceeding the other three companies This also has to be questioned: Why can Airbnb grow much faster than its peers?

  

  Fourth quarter financial data of four companies, source: Bloomberg and public documents

  Affected by the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, domesticMany companies cannot complete the 2019 annual report audit work as scheduled, and the disclosure time of the annual report will be delayed. In addition, companies such as Shanghaojia, Shell Electric, Warner Music and COLE HAAN have also delayed the process of going public in Hong Kong and the United States.
  

  Airbnb, founded in 2008, was once known as the three swordsmen of the sharing economy with Uber and Wework. On May 10, 2019, Uber broke immediately after its listing, with a decline of 7.6% on the first day. With the exposure of a series of operational scandals, Wework finally withdrew its IPO application in October 2019, and its valuation also fell from the highest of 47 billion U.S. dollars to 8 billion U.S. dollars. This is also a relatively failed investment by Sun Zhengyi.

  2 On September 20, 019, Airbnb published a short statement on the official website, planned to be available in 2020 . As one of the famous unicorns in the United States, the global venture capital circle is particularly concerned about whether Airbnb can be successfully listed as scheduled.

  Previously, there were media reports that in 2018, several employees of Airbnb jointly issued a letter requesting that they can sell the company ’s stock options they hold. These stock options will expire one after another from November 2020 to mid-2011. If Airbnb does not conduct an IPO during this time, it means that these stock options will become worthless. From the internal pressure facing the company, Airbnb seems to have to go public.
  

  In early March, Bloomberg reported that due to the spread of the COVID-19 new crown epidemic, Airbnb ’s plan to go public in 2020 may be postponed until 2021. Although Airbnb officials did not give a formal response, so far, the company has not canceled its 2020 listing plan.

  However, Airbnb opened another $ 1 billion loan in less than a weekThis has to make people doubt the feasibility of the 2020 IPO plan.