Carnival Corp beat expectations for the fourth quarter and reported record bookings thus far for 2020, but announced another delay on one of its newbuildings.
The cruise major reported $423m in net income for the last three months of 2019, down from $494m a year earlier.
The fourth-quarter profit equates to $0.61 in earnings per share, besting Wall Street's consensus forecast of $0.50. Revenue came in at $4.8bn, up from $4.5bn a year earlier.
The growth, the company said, was down to changes in fuel prices and currency exchange rates boosting the earnings per share figure by $0.11.
"We overcame a high number of unusual events compounded by a significant downturn in leisure travel demand for our large source markets in continental Europe," said chief executive Arnold Donald.
"In that environment, to achieve record revenues and adjusted earnings is an accomplishment for any consumer company, a credit to our 150,000 team members and demonstrates the robustness of our business model."
In early trading Friday, Carnival shares were up $4.15, or 8.9%, to $50.79.
The 2020 forecast
The record bookings come at lower prices than what Carnival was charging in 2019, the company said.
Despite this, Carnival is forecasting constant currency net cruise revenues to jump 5%. Net revenue yields for 2020 to drop roughly 1.5% year-over-year.
Cruise costs should drop, too, the company said, thanks to its increased use of marine gasoil to comply with IMO 2020, which should boost earnings by $0.17 per share to $0.24 per share for the full year.
Excluding the fuel change, costs will stay flat.
New York-listed Carnival said full year 2020 adjusted earnings per share should come in between $4.30 and $4.60 versus the $4.40 for 2019.
Newbuilding delays
Amid the good news, the company also announced that it would be taking delivery of the 5,200-berth newbuilding Carnival Mardi Gras by Meyer Turku shipyard in late October, with sailing beginning 14 November.
The ship was originally expected to begin revenue service in August.
Miami-headquartered Carnival said it was giving customers a full refund and 25% off a future cruise.
The delay is the second this year after the 5,000-berth, LNG-fuelled Costa Smerelda (built 2019) had its Mediterranean revenue service pushed back from mid-September to November, then to December.
The Costa Smrelda was also built by Meyer Turku.
The company did not immediately return a request for comment on the financial impact of the delay.
