Airbnb plans to go public in 2020
The home-sharing site intends to become a publicly traded company sometime next year.
- Coauthor of Uninvested (Random House, 2015)
Airbnb has announced that it intends to go public in 2020. The home-sharing site on Thursday posted a brief press release announcing that it plans to become a publicly traded company next year.
It declined to provide additional details in today's announcement. In a press release published yesterday, however, the company highlighted a number of recent milestones. Airbnb says it took in more than $1 billion in revenue in Q2 2019, and that Airbnb hosts have earned more than $80 billion to date.
Airbnb currently has more than 7 million listings -- that's more than the top five hotel chains combined -- in more than 191 countries and more than 100,000 cities. But the company's rapid growth has not been free from controversy.
Users have complained about issues including bedbug infestations and privacy violations. And the company has attracted both lawsuits and strict regulation in an increasing number of major cities in Europe and the US, due to concerns ranging from "touristification" to rising housing costs to data sharing.
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