Chinese online travel agency Ctrip has acquired Skyscanner, a UK based flight search engine company for £1.4 billion or $1.74 billion in cash, ordinary shares and loan notes. Ctrip says that the acquisition will help it in long term growth and will use its own resources to help Skyscanner. Ctrip will get all of Skyscanner’s shares and acquire the remaining shares from other shareholders. The acquisition is expected to be closed by the end of this year. According to a TechCrunch report, Ctrip’s Q3 2016 revenues were $810 million, up 75% year on year, and at a net profit of $4 million. Ctrip also raised $1 billion via convertible notes. Post the Ctrip acquisition, Skyscanner will operate independently under its present management team. It claims to have 60 million monthly active users (MAUs) and is available in 30 languages. The company claims to have a growing presence in Asia Pacific and the Americas, given that it operates in the UK and Europe primarily. At the start of this year, Skyscanner had raised $192 million from Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Yahoo! Japan among other investors, for expansion to other markets around the world and for acquisitions. In June last year, TripHobo partnered with Skyscanner to allow users to compare prices of hotels, flights and car rentals. Skyscanner lets users search for flights, hotels and car hires in over 20 countries. In India, the platform also lets users book buses in partnership with redBus. Ctrip’s MakeMyTrip investment Note that in January this year,…
