CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 28 July 2023

Travel

"There's still constrained capacity supply. You still have lots of competitors who have much higher unit cost, we will try and drive up pricing. But into the winter, the higher interest rates, higher mortgage rates, consumer price inflation, it has to feed back into air travel at some point in time" Michael O'Leary, CEO, Ryanair Holdings

“Summer travel across most regions picked up, with travel in and out of Asia seeing strong gains, along with travel inbound to CEMEA and outbound from Europe. Travel into the U.S. is still hovering at 2019 levels” Vasant Prabhu, CFO, Visa

"Consumer spending has remained resilient with spend on experiences and travel remaining a focus" Michael Miebach, CEO, Mastercard

Freight

"It feels like demand is starting to improve a little bit and we're having good conversations with customers just like we've been having all year long. But it certainly feels like things are starting to turn a little bit" Kevin Freeman, COO, Old Dominion Freight Line

Consumer Demand

“Across the sector, consumers are increasingly cost-conscious. They're looking for value and stocking up on items on sale” James Quincey, CEO, Coca-Cola

 “We’re seeing great growth in areas like coffee and breakfast remains a really strong day path for customers to come in. Customers are looking for great value and that’s not just about price” Antonio Martinez, CEO, McDonalds Australia

“Clearly, over-50 consumers have become more cautious in the last six months, but they are still spending” Scott Evans, CEO, Mosaic Brands

“Consumer spend across all spend bands from affluent to low spend remained stable since March. Our data did not indicate any behaviour change across consumer segments. Putting all this together, we continue to believe that the primary driver of the step-down in U.S. payments volume growth since March is moderating inflation and that the consumer has remained resilient so far” Vasant Prabhu, CFO, Visa

Inflation

"Nobody talks, nobody cares about supply. But where everything is just getting reasonably close to a more normalized environment. Prices are higher, okay, but that’s just a broader reset that’s happened throughout the entire economy, which I think unless you have broad disinflation, which it doesn’t feel like that’s happening anytime soon, that’s sustained." Christopher Nassetta, CEO, Hilton Worldwide Holdings

Autonomous Driving

"There's over 10,000 human ride hill drivers in San Francisco, potentially much more than that, depending on how you count it. Those drivers, of course, aren't working 20 hours a day like a robo taxi could. So it does not make a very high number to generate significant revenue in a city like San Francisco. But certainly, there's capacity to absorb several thousand per city at minimum."  Kyle Vogt, CEO, Cruise Automation‍

Advertising

"And in YouTube, we saw ongoing signs of stabilization in advertiser spending" Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet {Parent Company of Google}

Cruise Industry

“The percent of guests were either new to brand or new to cruise surpassed 2019 levels by a wide margin, and we have seen post-cruise repeat booking rates nearly double 2019 levels” Jason Liberty, CEO, Royal Caribbean Cruises

Aviation

“The need for 42,000 airplanes over the next 20 years is what the industry is telling us and with demand strong, the supply side of the system is beginning to settle down" David Calhoun, CEO, The Boeing Company

"We observe strong demand for aircraft, driven both by growth and fleet replacement, as airlines turn to more fuel-efficient aircraft to achieve their sustainability ambitions" Guillaume Faury, CEO, Airbus SE

Renewable Energy & ESG Investing

“Customers are also emphasizing many of the same strategic priorities that we are namely private markets, climate, energy transition and AI. This is evidenced in the 40% growth in energy transition revenue we saw in our commodity insights division in the second quarter” Doug Peterson, CEO, S&P Global 

“During my recent client trips to Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, and parts of the U.S., ESG was the most popular topic clients wanted to discuss. For that matter, when the IBM Institute for Business Value recently surveyed corporate executives across 22 industries, 76% of them said ESG is now central to their business strategy” Henry Fernandez, CEO, MSCI

PCs/Electronic Demand

“If you look a little further at the consumer electronics, wesaw a soft first half in across all consumer electronics categories smartphones, TVs, notebooks, tablets you just saw and it was impacting our results” Mike Roman, CEO, 3M‍