Priceline and Kayak: Comparing the numbers

Priceline’s purchase of Kayak at a $1.8 billion valuation is yet another example of a well-established industry giant buying a nimble tech upstart to boost its portfolio.

Because Kayak’s key feature was price comparison, we’ve created a handy chart to compare the size and popularity of the two travel tech companies. While Kayak is dwarfed in terms of pure revenue (it went public just this summer; Priceline’s IPO was in 1999), its innovation and creative marketing made it a darling in the online travel world.

			Ratio
Launch date	4/6/1998	1/14/2004
IPO date	3/29/1999	7/20/2012
52-week stock price high	$774.96	$37	20.9
Market cap (billions)	$31.31	$1.17	26.8
2012 Q3 Revenue (millions)	$1,700	$78.60	21.6
2012 Q3 Earnings per share	$11.66	$0.19	61.4
2011 Q3 Earnings per share	$9.17	$0.18	50.9
Employees	3,400	191	17.8
Twitter followers	38,062	308,132	0.12
Facebook likes	319,683	81,034	3.9

Mobile App Rankings (Travel genre)

			Difference
iPhone	9	11	+2
iPad Travel App ranking	10	4	-6
Android	12	10	-2

Source: Kayak 2012 Q3 report and Priceline 2012 Q3 report.