Amadeus IT Group maintained a positive financial evolution in 2019, supported by the solid operating performances of its businesses, particularly IT Solutions, the consolidation of TravelClick (since October 4, 2018) and positive foreign exchange effects. All these factors drove double-digit growth both in revenue and EBITDA, and an adjusted profit of €1,270.2 million, 13.4 per cent more than the previous year.
“Amadeus has closed another year of good growth. In Distribution, we saw market share gains in all regions except Asia-Pacific. In IT Solutions, our passengers boarded registered healthy growth thanks to recent customer implementations. We also made progress in our Hospitality business and continued expanding our reach both in Airport IT and Payments,” Luis Maroto, President & CEO of Amadeus, said.
“Our business demonstrated resilience in 2019 through constant innovation, diversification and the strengthening of our existing businesses. However, the Coronavirus outbreak will impact our industry and our business in 2020, with a sequential rebound, if it replicates past episodes,” he added. .
According to the release by Amadeus, the travel agency air booking industry continued to contract in the fourth quarter, leading to an overall decline of 0.9 per cent in 2019 (excluding India, it remained broadly flat). North America and Central, Eastern and Southern Europe registered growth, while Western Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa showed a contraction, impacted by several effects including the India situation, geopolitical tensions and the fires in Australia. Latin America was broadly stable in the period.
Amadeus’ air bookings once more outperformed the industry, remaining broadly stable (excluding India, our global air bookings grew 2.7 per cent). This performance was supported by market share expansion across regions, except for Asia Pacific. Excluding India, Amadeus’ global competitive position3 expanded by 1.0 p.p. in the year. Our non-air bookings increased 5.1% in 2019 driven by several products, including hotel, rail and car bookings. Overall, our travel agency bookings grew 0.5 per cent in 2019.
This was one of the factors which contributed to an increase of 4.2 per cent in revenue in this segment in 2019, to €3,130.6 million. Other positive impacts were the expansive average revenue per booking driven by a positive mix (from higher weight of global bookings and hotel bookings over total bookings), customer renegotiations and the double-digit expansion of our Payments distribution business, as well as a positive foreign exchange effect.
The release further states that securing content is essential for Amadeus to serve our customers and underpin our future growth in this segment. During 2019, we signed 47 new contracts or renewals of content agreements with airlines, including easyJet and the low-cost carrier Thai Lion Air. Subscribers to Amadeus’ inventory can access more than 110 low cost carriers (LCCs) and hybrid carriers’ content worldwide.
