The owners and staff at pan Euro OTA Opodo must be walking around with big fat smiles on their faces (or sitting slumped in their chairs with a look of absolute relief) after having recorded and announced their very first profit. Reports are of a EURO 6.6mm net profit in 2007 off the back of Euro 1.3bb in TTV (well they say sales but presume that is gross bookings). Other stats from the story are 3 mm customers and "double digit growth" 07 over 06.Results came despite or because of (you choose):
- abandoning their in-house hotel program and returning to the use of helpers such as Hotel.de.;
- a huge shift in management after the departure of almost all of the central senior executive team a year ago; and
- shedding offline business Karavel to Barclay's.
UPDATE - Travolution are carrying a brief interview with Opodo CEO Ignacio Martos where admitted that the sale of Karavel to Barclays contributed to the net profit number. Does not say how much it contributed. The leak that hit the internet was that the Karavel sale would net Amadeus (who control Opodo) Euro 40mm. So what does this mean. One reading is that maybe taking away the costs of operating Karavel help contribute to the Opodo bottom line. Another (more dangerous reading) is that it was the profits from the sale that pushed Opodo into the black, not general trading activity. No way of telling which until we see broken out numbers but is very interesting to speculate about.
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