Carnival Corp. on Thursday reported record revenue for the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year.
The cruise company said full-year revenue hit an all-time high of $21.6 billion, and that $5.4 billion was a Q4 record.
Booking volume for the two weeks around Black Friday and Cyber Monday reached an all-time high for that period, Carnival Corp. said, and total customer deposits reached a Q4 record of $6.4 billion, surpassing the previous record of $5.1 billion last year.
Nearly two-thirds of 2024 inventory is booked at "considerably higher" prices than 2023, said CEO Josh Weinstein. "We are well positioned to obtain another year of record revenues," he said.
Operating income totaled $384 million in Q4, but nonoperating expenses (including $466 million in interest expense) sunk Carnival to a $48 million net loss.
The company said it made debt payments of $6 billion in 2023 and ended the year with just over $30 billion of debt -- nearly $5 billion less than Carnival Corp.'s highest debt level in Q1.
Carnival Corp., like the other major cruise companies, took on a lot of debt during the pandemic to stay afloat while there was a pause in cruising.