11:22 | 14.08.2008
DGAP-News: hotel.de posts strong half-year results
hotel.de AG / Half Year Results
14.08.2008
Release of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP – a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer / publisher is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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hotel.de posts strong half-year results
- Sales growth remains high at plus 37% to Euro 15.9 million
- EBIT improves by around 25% in first half and around 85%
in 2nd quarter
- International growth especially strong
Nuremberg, 14 August 2008 – hotel.de AG, one of the leading online
reservation services for worldwide hotel accommodation, has reported a
strong first-half business performance. The company increased its sales to
Euro 15.9 million, equivalent to growth of 37.0% (H1 2007: Euro 11.6
million). The international business in particular performed very robustly,
boosting its sales by 63.8% from Euro 4.6 million to Euro 7.6 million in
the first six months of 2008. The company raised its operating earnings
(EBIT) by 24.7% to Euro 0.7 million (H1 2007: Euro 0.5 million). The net
surplus for the period also improved, showing slight growth of 4.5% to Euro
0.5 million (H1 2007: Euro 0.5 million).
The 2nd quarter was especially strong, indicating that benefits of scale
are beginning to kick in. The company achieved substantial growth in both
sales and all key earnings figures. Sales revenues rose by around 37.6%
from Euro 6.5 million to Euro 8.9 million, while earnings before interest
and taxes (EBIT) grew by 85.7% to Euro 0.7 million (Q2 2007: Euro 0.4
million). The net surplus for the period also rose by a substantial 38.0%
to Euro 0.5 million in the 2nd quarter.
Measures to enhance sales and margins take effect
Sales and EBIT have both benefited from the introduction of various
measures. ‘Launching password-free booking has enabled us to increase the
activity shown by occasional bookers and to tap additional sales
potential’, commented Dr. Heinz Raufer, CEO of hotel.de AG. According to
Nielsen Netratings, alongside bahn.de and TUI, hotel.de was among the top
ten travel sites for German internet users once more in June and was thus
again the online hotel portal with the highest number of visitors. Not only
that, commission bidding, i.e. the auctioning of top listing positions on
the results pages at hotel.de/hotel.info is meeting with increasing
acceptance from hotel customers, as are the higher minimum commission
levels already successfully introduced for the majority of hotels and due
to be completed in the fourth quarter.
‘Our efficiency enhancement programme, which we only introduced a few weeks
ago, has also led to initial optimisations in organisational and IT
divisions, thus impacting positively on the personnel expenses ratio. This
dropped from 45.9% to 44.9% in the first six months, an improvement of one
percentage point compared with the equivalent period in the previous year’,
Raufer continued. To be able to handle its ongoing substantial sales
growth, hotel.de increased the number of its employees from an average of
361 in the first half of 2007 to its current level of 489. As a result,
personnel expenses rose by 33.9% from Euro 5.3 million to Euro 7.1 million
in the first six months of 2008.
Other operating expenses, which also include marketing expenses for search
engines such as Google, also rose significantly by 55,6% to Euro 7.4
million (H1 2007: Euro 4.8 million). To enhance its cost effectiveness in
this area as well, hotel.de AG has strengthened its search engine
optimisation programme (SEO) in recent weeks. Initial success is already
apparent in terms of coverage, especially on foreign Google sites.
Positive outlook
The measures taken to boost sales and improve margins have already shown
initial success and are supporting the company’s ongoing high rate of
growth. What’s more, the Management Board expects further sales growth to
result from the continuing trend towards reducing the cost of business
travel and from maintaining the company’s expansion strategy. ‘We will be
stepping up our efforts to tap the South European market by opening an
outlet in Italy in the second half already. Even though we have completed
the majority of our investments, we will continue to invest and expand in
high-growth foreign markets under our international www.hotel.info brand’,
added Raufer. For the financial year as a whole, the company plans to
achieve sales growth of between 31% and 39% to Euro 34.0 million to Euro
36.0 million and thus to grow notably faster than the online market.
Moreover, the substantial earnings growth seen in the 2nd quarter is to be
maintained in the remainder of the year, leading the Management Board to
expect considerable growth in the company’s operating earnings (EBIT) and
annual net surplus.
hotel.de AG
hotel.de AG with its international brands hotel.info and TravelRes runs a
free of charge hotel reservation service for companies and private users on
www.hotel.de, www.hotel.ch and www.hotel.info. The company offers 210,000
hotels worldwide to be booked online. Since January 2007, hotel.de has also
been offering conferences. Compared to other booking channels, customers
benefit from considerable cost savings (on average 40% for business
customers). Additionally, all available rates for every single hotel are
always displayed, so that the customer can choose the lowest or
best-fitting rate (’Best-Buy’). Further, all bookings via hotel.de are sent
right into the hotel’s computer – making a reservation fast, safe and
reliable. This is enabled by hotel.de/TravelRes’ unique integration of the
hotels’ central reservation systems (so-called CRS) under one consistent
user surface. Well-known companies, such as Procter & Gamble, SAP AG, Texas
Instruments Inc. And Ernst & Young AG already use the hotel.de/TravelRes
corporate application.
hotel.info
hotel.info is the international brand of hotel.de AG. This brand was
established for pushing ahead its expansion into the European countries. In
order to acquire customers and hotels abroad, offices in London, Paris and
Barcelona have been set up, to be followed by other important countries.
The strong customer loyalty and the high ratio of business customers
facilitate hotel.info’s entry into the new markets as many foreign-based
subsidiaries or parent enterprises of German companies contracted by
hotel.de already have been using hotel.info. The aim is to establish
hotel.info as the leading online hotel reservation service for business as
well as private customers in the foreign markets mentioned and – step by
step – in Europe as a whole.
Press contact
hotel.de AG
Wibke Garbarukow
Hugo-Junkers-Str. 9
D-90411 Nürnberg
Germany
Phone: +49 (0)911-59832-0
Fax: +49-(0)911-59832-11
presse@hotel.de
www.hotel.de
Haubrok Investor Relations GmbH
Thomas Vormann
Kaistr. 16
D-40221 Düsseldorf
Germany
Phone.: +49 (0)211-30126-0
Fax: +49 (0)211-30126-172
t.vormann@haubrok.de
www.haubrok.de
14.08.2008 Financial News transmitted by DGAP
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Language: English
Issuer: hotel.de AG
Hugo-Junkers-Str. 9
90411 Nürnberg
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)911 5983 2270
Fax: +49 (0)911 5983 211
E-mail: garbarukow@hotel.de
Internet: www.hotel.de
ISIN: DE0006910938
WKN: 691093
Listed: Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (General Standard);
Freiverkehr in Düsseldorf, München, Stuttgart
End of News DGAP News-Service
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