Dallas, Texas 01/06/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – Ctrip.com International, Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:CTRP) it cannot be denied, is reeling under the weight of rival Qunar resounding Initial Public Offering in November 2013. CTRIPs third quarter results announced in the same month, did show they nudged past the estimates but the guidance issued for fourth-quarter simply pushed back investor sentiment. Fourth quarter estimates that CTRIP announces is the fact the revenue growth is 20 to 25% and is much lesser than the estimates that analysts expressed for CTRIP. The big bright spot for CTRIP however, remains its mobile growth. The China-based company is satisfied to report that the traffic in bookings for hotels, made via the mobile is much higher than the same during the second quarter. On percentage basis, the growth has reached 30%, which has increased from 20% in the second quarter for hotel bookings, whereas the air ticket bookings via the mobile reached 15%.
Ctrip chooses car rental partner –enters the competitive segment
Ctrip.com International, Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:CTRP) had announced just before Christmas, that it had finally found a viable partner with Yongche, and had put in $60 million in funds. Yongche considered to be one of China’s fast-moving car rental and booking services in the ecommerce and mobile segment, already offers connectivity between 49 cities in China. With the new funds, it plans to expand massively reaching over 100 cities by 2014.
Besides, Yongche will also benefit from the captive marketing it will now have on CTRIP, doubling CTRIPs investment in the long-term.
For Ctrip.com International, Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:CTRP) car rental services has been a segment it has previous not shown any interest in, considering the intense competition already for the segment. Ctrip has relied heavily instead on corporate bookings for travel by air and railways. Besides, it has a huge growth vertical in hotel bookings, along with pre-planned packages, corporate travelling.
