Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Ctrip.com International Ltd. (ADR) (TCOM 2.77%) were up 11.7% as of 12:10 p.m. Thursday after the China-focused travel website released better-than-expected unaudited first-quarter results.
So what: Quarterly revenue flew 46% higher over the year-ago period to $373 million, which translated to a GAAP net loss of $20 million, or $0.15 per diluted American depositary share (ADS). On an adjusted basis -- which primarily means excluding share-based compensation charges of $26 million -- Ctrip achieved net income of $5 million, or $0.04 per diluted ADS. Analysts, on average, were anticipating revenue of just $363.3 million to result in a larger adjusted net loss of $0.26 per ADS.
Now what: "We are pleased with the strong results delivered in the first quarter of 2015," added Ctrip CEO James Liang. And they have every reason to be pleased; Ctrip's accommodation reservation volume rose 60% over the past year. And transportation ticketing services volume increased 104%, notably driving a 64% increase in total air tickets sold to set a new company record. Mobile channels also comprised around 70% of total online transactions during the quarter, as cumulative mobile app downloads jumped more than 550% year over year to roughly 800 million.
For the current quarter, Ctrip expects revenue to continue growing at a rate of 45% to 50% year over year. By contrast, Wall Street was expecting second-quarter revenue to increase 42.5 % year over year to $395.7 million.
All things considered -- and even given Ctrip's current hefty share-based compensation -- it's hard to blame the market for so aggressively driving shares of the travel site up given its solid Q1 results and better-than-expected guidance. As long as Ctrip continues this momentum to seize its massive addressable market, I see no reason the stock can't also continue to reward long-term investors from here.