Webjet hits hard with $9.1m half-year profit

Webjet has reported a strong growth in its core business of selling flights to Aussie consumers, despite UBS forecasting a lower half-year net profit.

International bookings have jumped by 38% despite the shaky currency in Australia, with the company recording a net profit of $9.12 million for the six month period to December 31.

The online booking company reported a total transaction value of $620 million during the six month period, representing an increase of 22% compared to the previous corresponding period.

“Since completion of the IT transformation in April 2014, the Webjet business has been able to deliver more attractive consumer offerings for our customers,” Webjet Limited’s managing director John Guscic said.

“As a result, Webjet has seen record TTV each month since July and revenue and underlying EBITDA have grown more than 10% and we continue to grow materially faster than the market.”

But despite the surge of profits, the B2C business segment results, comprising both Webjet and Zuji businesses, saw a $0.4 million loss associated with the start-up of Webjet Exclusives, and a $0.6 million loss from Zuji’s Hong Kong and Singapore operations.

Guscic added that while Zuji’s Australian business is performing well, its Asian businesses have been under a bit of pressure, resulting in falls to both revenues and margins.

“As a result, we lost some of the gains we made last year and the business reported a loss for the half,” he said.

“Double digit TTV growth has now returned to our Asian markets, and the business was once again profitable in January 2015.

“The B2B division continues to demonstrate exceptional growth. From a start-up less than two years ago, the LOH business has made $1.5 million EBITDA in the half.

“We are delighted with our acquisition of SunHotels and see great growth opportunities in the European B2B market. We will build out our sales organisations in three to four key new markets in the second half so as to be well placed to grow the business further during the 2016 European travel season.”

The company also reported an interim of 6.25 cents per share totalling $4.96 million has been declared, and will be payable on April 15 2015.

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Latest comments

What goes around .... says:
February 21, 2015 at 11:35 am
It wasn’t so long ago that Elizabeth Gaines described any criticism of their handling of Best Flights as just “noise”. Webjets continued success and the complete failure of the HW website to either retain or gain new business will inevitably mean more “noise” for her to respond to in a few months time.
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In the know ... says:
February 19, 2015 at 11:40 am
Congratulation to Webjet. It is now obvious where Bestflights business went, no wonder David Clarke said “Thank You” to Rob Gurney, Elizabeth Gaines and the board members of Helloworld when they closed down BestFlights back in February. Did they seriously think that BestFlights clients would walk into a high street travel agent to make their bookings? Biggest fail in travel industry.
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