Ctrip announced its investment in eLong last Friday through acquiring eLong shares from certain selling shareholders, including Expedia together with several other investors. Ctrip acquired a 37.6% equity stake in eLong for a total purchase price of approximately $400 million.
Ctrip and Expedia have agreed to cooperate with each other to allow their respective customers to benefit from certain travel product offerings for specified geographic markets.
Ctrip has about 37% market share in China online travel market by total transaction value while eLong has about 2.6% in Q1 2015 according to Chinese research company Analysis.
Ctrip’s net revenues were RMB2.3 billion (US$373 million) for the first quarter of 2015, up 46% year-on-year, 82% of which came from accommodation reservation (US$154 million) and transportation ticketing (US$153 million) according to its Q1 finance results.
It suffered net Loss of RMB126 million (US$20 million) in Q1 2015, compared to net income attributable to Ctrip’s shareholders of RMB115 million (US$19 million) in Q1 2014.
Also read: China Outbound Travelers Spent Close to $500B Overseas in 2014