Ctrip.com to purchase Skyscanner for $1.7b
san francisco — Ctrip.com International will buy air-ticketing specialist Skyscanner for about £1.4 billion ($1.7 billion), as China’s biggest online travel company explores ways to expand beyond a home market it already dominates.
Ctrip, whose growth in years past was tied to the phenomenal rise of Chinese tourism, gains a strong foothold in Europe through the purchase of 13-year-old Skyscanner, one of the region’s larger flight ticketing services with more than 60 million monthly active users. The Chinese company said the acquisition will help it offer users a more complete array of options that combine air, rail and road travel.
Ctrip announced the deal alongside better-than-expected quarterly revenue and earnings on Wednesday. Its shares climbed almost seven per cent in New York during after-hours trade.
“The investment will strengthen our positioning on a global scale, serving customers in other parts of the world,” Chairman James Liang told analysts on a post-earnings conference call. “These investments have helped us develop a more comprehensive global travel ecosystem to better serve both our existing and potential customers.”
Ctrip remains largely unknown beyond the confines of the home travel market it currently dominates. It merged with nearest rival Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd. in a deal that made search-engine giant Baidu Inc. one of its main shareholders. Bloomberg Intelligence estimated in September that Ctrip handled almost 70 per cent of Chinese online travel transactions.