Carnival Corporation president and chief executive Arnold Donald says the earnings were significantly better than anticipated in the company's March guidance due to better than expected net revenue yields for most of the company's cruise brands, as well as lower than expected net cruise costs.
The company reported non-GAAP net income of $80m compared to $57m in the same period of 2013.
US GAAP net income, which included a net gain on vessel transactions of $15m and net unrealized gains on fuel derivatives of $11m, was $106m, up from a previous £41m which included the same level of gain on a ship sale but unrealized losses on fuel derivatives of $31m.
Revenues for the second quarter of 2014 were $3.6bn, compared with $3.5bn the prior year.
Donald said: "We benefited from effective marketing initiatives, which combined with a gradually improving economic environment, led to revenue yield improvement for our continental European brands.”
He says the improvements are expected to continue through the rest of the year, even though fleet-wide booking volumes for the next three quarters are running slightly behind last year. However, higher prices mean advance bookings are slightly ahead of last year.
The company has increased its full year 2014 non-GAAP diluted earnings per share guidance to in the range of $1.60 to $1.75, compared to 2013 non-GAAP diluted earnings of $1.58 per share.
Donald says Carnival has also made significant strides in identifying opportunities for cross-brand operational efficiencies.
“This work is still in the early stages, but we are making progress and beginning to see encouraging signs. We believe we have reached a positive inflection point for our company as we return to earnings growth in 2014 and work hard to ensure that growth accelerates in the years to come."
Carnival also achieved a 6% improvement in fuel consumption in the latest quarter.
Total revenues are expected to be higher for the full year 2014, but net revenue yields on a constant dollar basis to be down slightly.
