Benzinga | Oct 12, 2021 10:09AM EDT

Airbnb Shares Gain As Cowen Bumps Price Target By 38%, Upgrades To Outperform

* Cowen analyst Kevin Kopelman upgraded Airbnb Inc (NASDAQ:ABNB) to Outperform from Market Perform with a price target of $220, up from $160, implying 32% upside.

* Airbnb pioneered the hotel-to-homes shift, and at $47 billion in alternative gross booking value in 2021, he estimates it has greater than 50% share and growing among the global OTAs.

* He estimates alternative lodging increased from 24% of global lodging dollars pre-pandemic to 33% today and expects this step-up of alternative in the lodging mix to be permanent coming out of the pandemic.

* Consensus has Airbnb slowing to 17% growth next year. Still, he believes this reflects over-conservatism on the COVID recovery, the analyst added, noting that he is more than 20% above consensus in his own GBV estimate and greater than 50% above consensus on EBITDA.

* Price Action: ABNB shares traded higher by 3.77% at $172.82 in the market session on the last check Tuesday.