Skyscanner's Decelerating Revenue Growth and Its IPO Chances for 2017
Skift Take
There will be multiple winners in flight metasearch and Skyscanner, a relatively smaller player in the scheme of things, has the tech acumen and potential to be one of them. However, the company realizes it will need a merger/acquisition or an IPO to get headed toward where it ultimately wants to go.
Skyscanner has been generating decelerating revenue growth over the last three years, its 2015 earnings show, so will the trend hamper what one of its investors says are hopes for a 2017 initial public offering (IPO)?
Skyscanner's revenue grew 28 percent to $183 million in 2015, compared with a 42 percent increase in 2014 and a 96 percent jump in 2013. Skyscanner's profits (normalized EBITDA before statutory adjustments) rose 5 percent to $34 million. [See Skyscanner's financials in the chart below.]
Skyscanner's business is predominantly in flight search and it began taking flight bookings in the last year or so. The company's slowing revenue growth took place despite its acquisition of Chinese metasearch site Youbibi midway through 2014, and entering into a joint venture with Yahoo Japan in July 2015.
Asked about the slowing revenue growth, spokesperson Randi Wolfson says: "We made the decision in late 2014 to dedicate the first half of 2015 to focus on product improvements and developments, including a new facilitated booking feature and a new flights app. As such, we were able to accelerate our revenue growth in the second half of 2015, where
