Tongcheng-Elong may list in HK by year-end

Tongcheng-Elong Holding Limited, the third-largest online travel agency in China by trading volume, has reached a profit of 845.36 million yuan ($122 million) in the first half of 2018, it said in a post-hearing information released Thursday.

Tongcheng-Elong's total profits in the first six months of 2018 have exceeded its profits for the entire year of 2017, which were 684 million yuan, according to the document released by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, as the company has already applied for a listing in Hong Kong.

Its revenue stood at 2.83 billion yuan in the first half of 2018, while its 2017 revenue was 5.23 billion yuan.

Tongcheng-Elong may go public before the end of this year, said an anonymous source familiar with the company, which was created by a merger between Tongcheng Network and Elong completed in March 2018.

Data from iResearch showed that Tongcheng-Elong ranked as the third-largest in China's online travel market in terms of 2017 trading volume, with the highest year-on-year growth from 2015 to 2017 in the number of online transportation ticketing and accommodation reservation transactions in China's OTA travel market.

Tencent Group is the largest shareholder of Tongcheng-Elong with 24.92 percent of the company's shares. It has designated Tongcheng-Elong as the sole operator for the "Rail and Flight" and "Hotel" portals in Weixin and Mobile QQ payment interfaces, offering access to hundreds of millions of Chinese Internet users on a daily basis.