Infographic: Amadeus announces doubling of annual profits but warns on coronavirus

Infographic: Amadeus announces doubling of annual profits but warns on coronavirus

In an end of year trading announcement, the leading European GDS and travel technology firm said 2019 saw a solid performance, particularly in its IT Solutions division.

Amadeus saw double digit growth in revenue and profit in 2019, but warned the coronavirus will have an impact on its performance in 2020.

In an end of year trading announcement, the leading European GDS and travel technology firm said 2019 saw a solid performance, particularly in its IT Solutions division.

With the consolidation of TravelClick and the positive impact of foreign exchange taken into account Amadeus recorded adjusted profit of €1.270.2 million, up 13.4% on 2018, in the 12 months to December 31.

Luis Maroto, president and chief executive of Amadeus, said: “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.

“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.”

IT Solutions revenue in 2019 grew 26.2%, to €2,447.3 million thanks to Airline IT performing strongly and consolidation of hotel tech solutions specialist TravelClick.

The travel agency air booking sector continued to contract in the fourth quarter, leading to an overall decline of 0.9% in 2019, although excluding India, it was flat.

North America and central, eastern and southern Europe saw growth, while western Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa contracted due to geopolitical tensions and the wild fires in Australia. Latin America was broadly stable.

Amadeus said it air bookings outperformed the industry, remaining broadly stable.

The firm said: “This performance was supported by market share expansion across regions, except for Asia Pacific. Excluding India, Amadeus’ global competitive position expanded by 1.0 percentage points 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% in 2019.”

This contributed to an increase of 4.2% in revenue in this segment in 2019, to €3,130.6 million.