News
Yanolja improves revenue growth by 1.8 times to USD 260M, becoming EBITDA-positive in 2019
corp
2020.03.20
- The revenue includes USD 234 million from Korea and USD 26 million from overseas…Yanolja HQ made a successful return to positive EBITDA
- Yanolja exceeded USD 3.5 billion in annual transaction thanks to the outstanding performance of its mobile booking platform as well as global hotel solutions
- “We will reinforce our global R&D capabilities to secure sustainable growth momentum and solidify our No.1 position as a Super App in travel”
Yanolja, the only travel tech unicorn in South Korea, unveiled its financial performance of 2019.
Last year, Yanolja achieved USD 260 million in total revenue from its domestic and global businesses, recording a 78.8% year-on-year growth. The company is maintaining a high annual growth rate of over 70% for the past five years. In particular, its fourth-quarter revenue in 2019 recorded USD 79 million, up 78.9% from the same period last year. Excluding its subsidiaries and global businesses, Yanolja HQ achieved a return to positive EBITDA at USD 1.4 million, recording nearly 20% points year-on-year increase.
Yanolja's domestic revenue recorded USD 234 million, up approximately 68% from the previous year. The global revenue more than quadrupled from USD 5.9 million in 2018 to USD 26 million last year, emerging as a new growth engine of Yanolja. Furthermore, annual transaction volume exceeded USD 3.5 billion in total, including more than USD 1 billion from the B2C market, proving Yanolja's strong competitiveness in the global hospitality market.
Such an upturn in the overall performance is attributed to the strong growth of the accommodation, leisure and activity booking platform business in and outside of Korea. In addition, the robust performance of Yanolja's hotel franchise business, which advanced into the Southeast Asian market as well,and global hotel solutions business acquired or invested by Yanolja (e.g., eZee Technosys and ZEN Rooms) also contributed to the success. Yanolja plans to achieve even more substantial revenue growth and profitability this year.
Until now, Yanolja has focused on its global businesses to grow into the world's largest cloud-based hotel solutions provider and Southeast Asia's No.1 budget hotel chain. This year, Yanolja aims to achieve an over two-fold growth of its global business to generate 50% of its total revenue from the global business in the next 5 years. Besides, Yanolja will actively join global conferences to introduce the company's strong technological capabilities and will make aggressive technology investments across the globe, including running an R&D organization staffed with more than 500 employees in and outside of Korea.
Meanwhile, Yanolja became the first and only travel tech unicorn in South Korea, by attracting USD 200 million from world-renowned sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Limited, global travel platform Booking Holdings, and so on.
“This year, despite COVID-19, we will build a robust and sustainable growth momentum through active investment into R&D capability. Based on this, Yanolja will leap forward to become a global No.1 hospitality company and strengthen our unrivaled position as a Super App in travel,” said LEE Su Jin, CEO & Founder at Yanolja.