Travel technology firm Amadeus has reported ‘good performances’ across its distribution and IT solutions segments in the first half of the year, with a 4.1 per cent increase in revenue to more than €2.4 billion.
A 3.4 per cent boost in airline ticket sales to 305.1 million bookings helped the firm grow its pre-adjusted earnings by 8.2 per cent to €1.78 billion. The distribution segment alone saw revenue increase by 2.6 per cent to just over €1.5 billion.
Amadeus says its fastest-growing regions in terms of air bookings were Asia Pacific, central, eastern and south Europe and North America. Bookings actually decreased in western Europe, impacted by an “industry decline” and the loss of share at some European mid-sized online travel agencies.
However, Amadeus warns that its results continue to be distorted by fluctuating exchange rates between the euro and US dollar, which it says had “an important negative effect”.
Amadeus, which recently became the first company to reach Level 3 certification under IATA’s NDC programme as both an aggregator and IT provider, struck 15 new or renewed contracts in the six months to 30 June and now offers access to the inventory of 110 low-cost and hybrid carriers.
The company is also continuing development of its hospitality offering, with its Guest Reservation System with Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) due to be fully rolled out later this year or early in 2019.
Luis Maroto, president and CEO of Amadeus, commented: “Amadeus’ financial results continue their positive trend in the first half of the year. Our businesses again showed solid growth with both revenue and EBITDA growing at high single-digit rate excluding foreign exchange effects with a broadly stable EBITDA margin.
“We remain optimistic about the outlook for the rest of the year. We continue to secure and expand the content available for our subscribers through the Amadeus system, with content agreements signed or renewed with 15 carriers. The 18 per cent increase in the number of passengers boarded of our IT Solutions business (which amounted to 888.8 million in the first half of 2018) was supported by a 7.8 per cent organic growth and by our latest migrations. We also continued to progress successfully in our diversification strategy into new businesses.”
amadeus.com