Carnival Corporation is predicting a “solid year of improvement” in 2017 despite rising fuel costs and unfavourable currency movements.
The forecast came as the world’s largest cruise company reported annual net income of $2.6 billion, a rise of $500 million over 2015.
The result came on revenues rising to $16.4 billion from $15.7 billion year-on-year for the group which includes brands such as Cunard and P&O Cruises.
Forecast fuel costs for 2017 are expected to increase by about $200 million while unfavourable movements in currency exchange rates are forecast to further reduce earnings.
President and chief executive Arnold Donald said: “We achieved the most profitable year in our company’s history as well as record fourth quarter earnings.
“The continued execution of our core strategy to drive consumer demand in excess of measured capacity growth, contain costs and leverage our industry-leading scale resulted in our third consecutive year of significantly higher earnings and return on invested capital.
“This continued strong performance is a credit to the outstanding contributions of our 120,000 employees worldwide who work every day to exceed our guests’ expectations and our thousands of travel agent partners around the globe whose support is crucial to our success.”
He added: “We enjoyed strong momentum in booking patterns throughout 2016 and therefore are in a stronger booked position entering the new year at higher prices as a result of our ongoing efforts to increase consideration and demand for our brands.”
Looking forward, Donald said: “We are anticipating another solid year of operational improvement in 2017.
“Despite the unusual and significant impact of fuel and currency working against us simultaneously, the underlying strength in our fundamental business leaves us well positioned to achieve sustained double digit return on invested capital and to create continued value for our shareholders.”