Tongcheng Travel, a Hong Kong-listed online travel company invested by Trip.com Group and Tencent, announced its annual earnings results for 2021. The company saw its revenue increase 27% last year to nearly RMB 7,538 million (USD 1,184 million). For the fourth quarter, revenue was up by only 1.8% year-on-year.
Annual profit rose nearly 120% from RMB 326 million in 2020 to RMB 714 million in 2021, though there was a year-on-year decline in Q4 profit last year.
Average monthly active users or MAUs increased by 21.7% year-to-year from 196.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 238.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Tongcheng said it has further expanded and utilized its traffic channels within the Tencent ecosystem. The company continued to explore business potentials and built more solid relationships with its strategic investor Tencent. In 2021, about 80.7% of Tongcheng's average MAUs were contributed from the Weixin mini-program. The majority of the traffic came from the Weixin Pay interface and the drop-down list of users’ favorite or most frequently used mini-programs.
Revenue from accommodation reservation services increased by 23.8% from RMB 1,945 million for 2020 to RMB 2,409 million for 2021. The increase was mainly due to the increased demand of accommodation and the contribution of value-added services.
Revenue from transportation ticketing services rose by 28.4% from RMB 3,471 million for 2020 to RMB 4,458 million for 2021. The increase was mainly due to the increased demand of transportation ticketing services as a result of recovery from the outbreak of COVID-19 and value-added user services related to transportation ticketing services.
Selling and marketing expenses increased by 42.5% from RMB 2,131 million for 2020 to RMB 3,037 million for 2021.
On September 24, 2021, Tongcheng Travel acquired 100% equity interest in PMS company Changsha Golden Swan Software Technology, from independent third parties, and accounted for such acquisition as a business combination and started to consolidate the financial statements from September 25, 2021.
