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Priceline and Kayak: Comparing the numbers


Skift Take

Priceline is buying a much smaller, younger travel tech company in Kayak, but one that has earned a lot of fans for its innovation.

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.

Priceline KAYAK 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)

Priceline KAYAK 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.

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