Ctrip profit up 66% in 2007

[photopress:CTrip.jpg,full,alignright]Ctrip.com, a (perhaps, ‘the’ would be a more appropriate word) Chinese online travel operator, has posted a net profit of RMB398 million ($55 million) in 2007, up 66% over the previous year.

In the fourth quarter, net profit of the Nasdaq-listed firm more than doubled to RMB135 million.

For the full year 2007, business revenue rose more than 50% to RMB1.3 billion, 53% of which came from hotel reservation service which contributed RMB677 million.

Business revenue through air ticket bookings reached RMB503 million, accounting for 39% of the total, up 72% from 2006.

Co-founder and CEO Min Fan became Chief Executive Officer in January 2006. Before becoming involved in Ctrip he had more than 15 years of experience in travel-related industries. From 1997 to 2000, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Shanghai Travel Service Company, a leading domestic travel agency in China.
He obtained his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He also studied at the Lausanne Hotel Management School of Switzerland in 1995.
Min Fan is also the founding shareholder of Home Inns & Hotels Management, a Chinese economy hotel developer, operator, and franchisor with a $1.2 billion market capitalization.

Ctrip publishes its expectations that its net revenue will grow to 35% in 2008. This is almost certainly a conservative estimate. In the year of the Olympic Games and with the abolition of airline tickets and the massive increase in travel within China by Chinese, Ctrip is set for a major increase to its turnover and profitability.
Source: China View