Operating and Financial Review
DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY - November 4, 2025, trivago N.V. (NASDAQ:TRVG) (the "Company", "we," "us," "our," or "trivago,") announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025.
Highlights:
Total revenue grew 13% year-over-year to €165.6 million in the third quarter, driven by an 11% increase in Referral Revenue, which reached €161.6 million, compared to the same prior year period, marking our fourth consecutive quarter of growth.
Third consecutive quarter achieving double-digit year-over-year total Referral Revenue growth compared to the same prior year period, primarily driven by continued strong double-digit branded channel traffic1 growth across trivago's Core segments2.
Net income was €11.0 million, representing our strongest third quarter result as a publicly-listed company, partly driven by another income gain of €3.2 million related to the consolidation of Holisto Limited ("Holisto", renamed to trivago DEALS Limited), while Adjusted EBITDA3 was €16.0 million, exceeding the prior year by 18%.
Completed our strategic acquisition of Holisto on July 31, 2025, which has been consolidated with our results on a one month lag basis4.
For full-year 2026, we expect to achieve an Adjusted EBITDA of around €20 million5, while maintaining a double-digit total revenue growth rate.
"We're encouraged by the strength and durability of our momentum. Revenue grew 13% year-over-year, marking our third consecutive quarter of double‑digit growth. The third quarter exceeded our expectations for both total revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. The quality of this growth gives us confidence. It's led by our strong double-digit branded channel traffic revenue growth, which continues to outperform our expectations and benefits from compounding effects. We achieved this growth despite major foreign exchange headwinds, while improving Adjusted EBITDA by 18% year-over-year. Our AI‑powered marketing campaign featuring brand ambassador Jürgen Klopp and our local productions made a strong impact this summer. Our product has significantly improved quarter after quarter, delivering a better user experience and stronger marketing efficiency." said Chief Executive Officer Johannes Thomas.
"We experienced yet another quarter of double-digit year-over-year total revenue growth, with especially strong momentum in the Americas and Rest of World segments with 14% and 12% Referral Revenue growth, respectively. We maintained a stable Return on Advertising Spend even as we increased our brand investments, where elasticities are attractive but returns come over time. Despite foreign exchange related headwinds, we continue to expect mid-teens percentage revenue growth and positive Adjusted EBITDA of at least €10 million5 for the full year of 2025. For 2026, we also expect mid-teens percentage revenue growth and to achieve an Adjusted EBITDA of around €20 million." said Chief Financial Officer Dr. Wolf Schmuhl.
Financial Summary & Operating Metrics (€ millions, unless otherwise stated)
Three months ended September 30,
Nine months ended September 30,
2025
2024
Δ Y/Y
2025
2024
Δ Y/Y
Total revenue
165.6
146.1
13%
429.0
366.1
17%
Referral Revenue
161.6
145.3
11%
423.5
362.7
17%
Return on Advertising Spend
134.1%
134.1%
— ppts
124.1%
125.9%
(1.8) ppts
Net income/(loss)
11.0
(15.4)
n.m.
(3.3)
(28.8)
(89)%
Adjusted EBITDA
16.0
13.6
18%
4.5
(0.9)
n.m.
About trivago N.V.
trivago N.V. (NASDAQ:TRVG) is a leading global hotel search and price comparison platform and one of the most recognized travel brands in the world. When price savvy travelers are searching for a hotel, we want trivago to be the obvious choice. We aim to help travelers find the best place to stay and the best time to go. trivago aims to enable them to book with confidence, saving travelers valuable time and money. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, we seek to personalize and simplify the hotel search experience for millions of travelers every month. We provide access to more than 5.0 million hotels and other types of accommodation in over 190 countries.
Discussion of Results
The discussion of results should be considered together with our unaudited financial information included with this review and the periodic reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. Certain information and disclosures normally included in consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP") have been omitted from this review.
Recent Trends
Total revenues grew 13% year-over-year to €165.6 million in the third quarter, primarily driven by Referral Revenue of €161.6 million, which increased 11% compared to the same prior year period. The strong results represent our fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth and the third consecutive quarter of achieving double-digit revenue growth. The quarter began with single digit year-over-year total revenue growth due to strong prior-year comparatives, before accelerating to strong double-digit growth levels for the remainder of the quarter. We continued to observe strong growth across our marketing channels and higher traffic volumes across all reportable segments, particularly in Developed Europe and Americas, in response to our continuous strategic marketing investments.
Momentum for our branded channel traffic revenue sustained year-over-year, particularly in Americas and Developed Europe, maintaining growth at double-digit levels in the third quarter across all trivago Core segments. The solid performance was driven by a continued strong response to our branded channel traffic marketing investments made throughout the third quarter, which continue to resonate with our target audience. The continued growth observed this quarter confirms our strategic brand initiatives are effectively working as planned.
During the third quarter, we continued to further increase our Advertising Spend investments year-over-year, which increased by 13% year-over-year, or €13.6 million, compared to the same period in 2024. We continued on our disciplined approach to our brand and performance marketing investments, focusing on long-term sustainability and profitability. Despite the increased levels of brand investments, we maintained a strong Global ROAS of 134.1%, which was particularly driven by strong performance in our Americas segment. We believe these results reflect our ability to effectively further scale our marketing strategy, particularly within our branded marketing channels, while simultaneously growing our revenue baseline at profitable levels. Looking ahead, we remain focused on executing a long-term growth strategy that prioritizes sustainable, scalable results over short-term profit maximization.
Outlook
We continue to see significant opportunities to further scale our marketing efforts at profitable levels and we remain committed to pursuing promising advertising opportunities to maintain our positive momentum. We expect these initiatives will enable us to continue expanding our audience reach, driving long-term revenue growth. With the strategic acquisition of Holisto completed, we look forward to further enhancing the user experience by expanding trivago Book & Go, our facilitated booking funnel offering, to deliver long-term growth. With our strong capitalization and positioning, we are well-prepared to fuel continued growth.
We anticipate delivering our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year total revenue growth during the last quarter of 2025, with the full year delivering mid-teens percentage growth as previously guided. We anticipate positive Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter to deliver full-year 2025 positive Adjusted EBITDA that is at least comparable to last year's performance. For the full-year 2026, we expect to maintain our double-digit total revenue growth rate and to achieve an Adjusted EBITDA of around €20 million.
Revenue, Advertising Spend, and Return of Advertising Spend
Referral Revenue & Other Revenue
We match our users' searches with large numbers of hotel and other accommodation offers through our auction platform, which we call our marketplace. With our marketplace, we provide advertisers a competitive forum to access user traffic by facilitating a vast quantity of auctions on any particular day. Advertisers submit hotel room and other accommodation rates and participate in our marketplace primarily by making bids for each user click on an advertised rate for a hotel or other accommodation on a cost-per-click, or CPC, basis. We also offer the option for our advertisers to participate in our marketplace on a cost-per-acquisition, or CPA, basis.
We earn substantially all of our revenue when users of our websites and apps click on hotel and accommodation offers or advertisements in our search results and are referred to one of our advertisers, or when a user makes a booking on the advertiser's website ultimately from a referral from our platform. We call this our Referral Revenue.
Management has identified three reportable segments: Americas, Developed Europe and Rest of World (RoW), collectively referred to as trivago Core segments. Our Americas segment is comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the United States and Uruguay. Our Developed Europe segment is comprised of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Our RoW segment is comprised of all other countries. In the third quarter of 2025, the most significant countries by revenue in that segment were Japan, Turkey, Australia, Poland and New Zealand. We have also determined that our trivago DEALS operating segment does not meet the quantitative thresholds of a separate reportable segment for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2025.
We also earn revenue by providing travelers with online platforms for direct hotel booking services and offering our advertisers business-to-business (B2B) solutions such as data product offerings and subscription fees earned from advertisers for the trivago Business Studio subscriptions. Additionally, we have agreements with certain hotel service providers and affiliates to receive consideration based on achievement of sales volume targets or gross transaction volume of affiliate services, respectively. These revenue streams, which include existing other revenue streams and revenue resulting from the acquisition of Holisto, do not represent a significant portion of our total revenue.
Referral Revenue by Segment & Other Revenue (€ millions)
Three months ended September 30,
Nine months ended September 30,
2025
2024
Δ €
Δ %
2025
2024
Δ €
Δ % Y/Y
Americas
€ 58.8
€ 51.6
€ 7.2
14%
€ 156.5
€ 137.6
€ 18.9
14%
Developed Europe
69.7
64.2
5.5
9%
178.2
155.1
23.1
15%
Rest of World
33.0
29.4
3.6
12%
88.7
70.0
18.7
27%
Total Referral Revenue
€ 161.6
€ 145.3
€ 16.3
11%
€ 423.5
€ 362.7
€ 60.8
17%
Other revenue
4.0
0.8
3.2
n.m.
5.4
3.4
2.0
59%
Total revenue
€ 165.6
€ 146.1
€ 19.5
13%
€ 429.0
€ 366.1
€ 62.9
17%
Note: Some figures may not add up due to rounding.
Referral Revenue
Referral Revenue increased by €16.3 million and €60.8 million during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2025, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2024. The increases in all trivago Core segments were primarily driven by growth from branded channel traffic in response to our continuous brand marketing investments, as well as growth from other marketing channels driven by higher traffic volumes and improved booking conversion. We continue to observe overall healthy bidding dynamics on our platform compared to the same periods in 2024, particularly in Americas. These increases were partly offset by the weakening of local currencies against the Euro.
Other Revenue
Other revenue increased by €3.2 million and €2.0 million during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2025, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2024, primarily driven by revenues resulting from our recent acquisition of Holisto. During the nine months ended September 30, 2025, this was partly offset by the discontinuation of other B2B revenue sources in the middle of 2024.
Advertiser Concentration
We generate the majority of our Referral Revenue from online travel agencies, or OTAs. For brands affiliated with Expedia Group, including Brand Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire, Wotif, Vrbo and ebookers, the share of our Referral Revenue was 30% and 34% during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2025, respectively, compared to 36% and 38% in the same periods in 2024. For brands affiliated with Booking Holdings, including Booking.com, Agoda and priceline.com, the share of our Referral Revenue was 44% and 40% during the three and nine month periods ended September 30, 2025, respectively, compared to 40% and 39% in the same periods in 2024.
Advertising Spend
Advertising Spend is used in the calculation of our primary operating metric for trivago Core segments as further described in the "Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)" section below. It is included in selling and marketing expense and consists of fees that we pay for our various marketing channels including TV, search engine marketing, display and affiliate marketing, email marketing, online video, app marketing, content marketing, and sponsorship and endorsement for our trivago Core segments. Other expenses not related to trivago Core segments' Advertising Spend are included in the "Selling and Marketing" section below.
(in € millions)
Three months ended September 30,
Nine months ended September 30,
2025
2024
Δ €
Δ %
2025
2024
Δ €
Δ % Y/Y
Americas
€ 44.5
€ 40.9
€ 3.6
9%
€ 133.4
€ 113.8
€ 19.6
17%
Developed Europe
49.7
42.5
7.2
17%
134.8
115.3
19.5
17%
Rest of World
27.8
25.0
2.8
11%
74.8
58.9
15.9
27%
Total Advertising Spend
€ 122.0
€ 108.4
