Carnival Corp. Reports First Quarter Earnings

Carnival Corp. reported net income of $128 million ($0.22 diluted EPS) on revenues of $1 billion for its first quarter ended February 28, 2001, compared to net income of $171.5 million ($0.28 diluted EPS) on revenues of $824.9 million for the same quarter in 2000. For the first quarter of 2001, revenues increased 22.2 percent over the comparable quarter in 2000 primarily because of the consolidation of Costa's results of operations starting in the first quarter of 2001 and the introduction of new ships to the company's Carnival Cruise Lines and Holland America Line fleets.Earnings for the first quarter of 2001 decreased compared to 2000 primarily because last year's results included significantly higher net revenue yields, which largely resulted from the unusually high-priced "Millennium sailings" over the New Year's period last year. Commenting on first quarter of 2001 results, Carnival Corp. chairman and CEO Micky Arison noted that, excluding the effect of the Millennium, comparable net revenue yields were down less than one percent compared to the first quarter of 2000, demonstrating a continuing improvement over what the company had reported during the last several quarters."It appears our strategy of aggressively pricing our cruises for those guests booking the furthest in advance of sailing has worked, especially considering the improvement in comparable net revenue yields occurred during a period of increasing weakness in the U.S. economy," Arison said. Also during the first quarter of 2001, the company finalized contracts for the construction of two new 105,000-ton ships for its Costa Cruises brand and also transferred Carnival Cruise Lines' 1,022-passenger Tropicale to the Costa fleet.The Costa Tropicale is currently undergoing a major refit in Italy and is expected to begin operating seven-day Mediterranean cruises in June 2001.