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.
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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.