05-26-2015, 03:28 AM
Then in 2013, after the shares had nearly tripled, we added some caution:
We believe that Ctrip is very well placed to benefit from all four of these trends and indeed, the shares jumped on another strong quarter and outlook at the end of July, beating both top-line and bottom-line by a considerable margin. However, as indicated in our first article, competition, and hence margin pressure, remains a concern, so let's start there.
We can see both arguments playing out even today. Revenue growth is still very strong, but margins have come under even bigger stress because of heavy investing (mostly in mobile platforms for smartphones and tablets), discounting and marketing.