An absorbent article having a front panel, a rear panel, an intermediate panel joining the front and the rear panels and optionally one or more fitting components is provided. At least one of the panels and/or the fitting components is elastically contractible and made of an elastic nonwoven material that is pre-stretched and has both non-elastic and elastic polymeric material components in the form of fibers. The nonwoven material is bonded by individual bonding points arranged in a pattern. The pattern has rows of individual bonding points extending in a machine-direction and a cross-direction of the nonwoven material, and each has a centre point. The centre point of each bonding point in a row of bonding points extending in the cross-direction and/or machine-direction is offset from a centre point of each bonding point in a neighbouring row of bonding points extending in the cross-direction and/or in the machine-direction, respectively.
