Amadeus half year profits up 12%

Amadeus saw profits rise by more than 12% to €263.7 million in the first half of the year

Amadeus saw profits rise by more than 12% to €263.7 million in the first half of the year


The company’s global market share of travel agency air bookings rose by 0.8 percentage points to 37.2% in the six months and passengers boarded increased by 32.5% to 203.9 million.


Amadeus expects annual passengers boarded to be more than 700 million by 2014. Revenue grew by 3.9% to almost €1.4 million in the six months to June 30 over the same period last year.


Net debt dropped by 26.3% or €675.5 million, helped by the sale of Opodo.


President and chief executive Luis Maroto said: “This has been a positive and active first half of the year. At an operational level, both our Distribution and IT Solutions businesses continued to grow and in particular had significant successes in the Asia-Pacific region, adding further visibility to our future growth.


“In Distribution, our global market share of air travel agency bookings increased by 0.8 percentage points and an important partnership was signed with TOPAS, a subsidiary of Korean Air, to launch a reservation system using Amadeus technology which will handle more than 50% of all travel agency bookings in Korea.


“In IT Solutions, the number of passengers boarded increased by 32.5% and we signed further Amadeus Altéa Suite contracts with leading global airlines such as All Nippon Airways for its international flights, Korean Air and Thai Airlines.”


Maroto said he was confident that ongoing investment in developing technology will continue to produce long-term results and was looking forward to the second half of the year “with confidence”.