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Amadeus
Blog
Q1 2014: Strong performance in a very active quarter
Cristina Fernandez
Director, Investor Relations, Amadeus IT Group
Our results reflect the sound performance of our core businesses, Distribution and Airline IT. Distribution revenue was 6.5% higher than in 2013, amounting to €651.7 million. The Distribution business was supported by steady volume growth, with a 5.3% increase in travel agency air bookings on the back of a recovering Air travel agency booking industry in the quarter. The underlying industry posted a 4.4% increase in 1Q2014, following from a 4.3% improvement in 4Q2013. Our performance was driven by high growth in North America, supported by market share gains, the positive impact of industry recovery in Western Europe, and strong growth in the Middle East and Africa, which had been negatively impacted by political instability in 2013. Exciting recent news in Distribution is our announcement at the end of the quarter of our intention to acquire i:FAO, a leading provider of travel management solutions for corporations.
Amadeus today announced an excellent set of results for the first quarter of 2014. Quarter revenue of €867.6m experienced 9.1% growth above last year and EBITDA of €351.4m was 8.7% higher than in 2013. Excluding the recent Newmarket and UFIS acquisitions, quarter Revenue and EBITDA both were 7.4% higher than last year. In addition to our successful financial performance, we have also had a very active quarter in terms of events, as described below.
In the Airline IT business, revenue grew 18.0%, to €215.9 million. Excluding Newmarket International and UFIS, revenue increased 10.6% reaching €202.3 million. The Asia Pacific region remained the strongest growth region, with 85.2% increase of passengers boarded. This was driven by the migration of Asian airlines to our Altéa platform over the last twelve months, and this shift will continue as additional contracted carriers from the region are migrated during 2014 and 2015. Passengers boarded rose 15.8%, to 152.5 million. We were also very pleased to announce recently that Southwest Airlines, the largest US domestic airline, has contracted the Altéa platform to support its domestic service operations. This follows Southwest’s international service successful migration to Altéa in January 2014.
Our growth this quarter was reinforced by the positive contribution of Newmarket International, our recent Hotel IT acquisition, and UFIS, a recently acquired Airport IT player. Newmarket , as you know, represents an important step towards our stated ambition of building a community model for the hotel industry. We also accomplished a key milestone through our recently signed partnership with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). In Airpot IT, the UFIS acquisition has enabled Amadeus to accelerate its product development plan and to become a reference in the Airport IT sector.
If you would like to know more, further information can be found in the press release and other documents posted today on our Investor Relations website , along with a wide selection of other facts and figures.