Expedia released its Q4 2015 earnings on February 10th. Riding on both core organic growth and its host of acquisitions, the company, as predicted, delivered yet another quarter of robust performance. In Q4 2015 (excluding eLong), Expedia’s gross bookings grew by 40% year-over-year to around $15 billion and its revenues were higher by 29% to $1.7 billion. Out of this, the acquisitions added around 28 percentage points and 19 points to gross bookings growth and revenue growth, respectively. For the full year 2015, Expedia has completed around $6 billion worth of acquisitions. The main points in the earnings call was Expedia’s recent HomeAway acquisition and how it has made the OTA the largest accommodation provider in the world with 1,508,000 listings across its platforms. Expedia’s eLong divestiture and the acquisition of Travelocity, Orbitz, Decolar, and finally, HomeAway, are all strategic decisions that are working really well for the company. However, the company might be more interested in international takeovers in 2016 and beyond. Finally, Expedia is gradually changing the economics of hotel listing on its websites by offering hotels a bidding option to choose for top slots on its pages. Though in the initial stages, this move might change the way OTAs do business with hotels in the long run. 

from Forbes – Tech http://ift.tt/1SLxRtY
via IFTTT