SAN FRANCISCO — Airbnb said on Thursday that it planned to go public in 2020, becoming one of the last of a generation of prominent technology start-ups to aim for the stock market, even as some of its brethren have struggled since listing their shares.

The online room rental company gave little detail about when in 2020 it planned to go public, beyond a one-sentence announcement. On Wednesday, Airbnb reported second-quarter revenue of more than $1 billion and said that it had more than seven million listings in 100,000 cities around the world.

When it goes public, Airbnb, valued by private investors at $31 billion, will be one of the most highly valued public offerings to hit the market since this spring, when a rash of hot start-ups, including Uber, Lyft, Slack and Pinterest, listed their shares.

Making a public statement about going public in a particular year is unusual among technology start-ups, which typically keep their plans secret. But Airbnb made the move as it explored offering equity to the “hosts” who list their homes on its site, according to three people familiar with the situation, who declined to be named because the plans were confidential. Under securities law, Airbnb has to unveil its plans to go public before it can offer shares to the hosts.