A story on Travolution shows online rail bookings having increased at thetrainline.com boosting sales to more than £1 billion.
According to the news from parent company Trainline Investments Holidays, revenues from the company’s website jumped to an inpressive £1.2 billion, up from £962 million in the previous annual period. Also according to the Travolution story, Trainline’s cut of this revenuw was some £90 million.
Courtesy © Becky Stares - Fotolia.com
Another story on This Is Money, speaks of a rather massive ad campaign featuring song and dance by the company, a campaign some say spurred these increased revenues.
In reality, the total revenues were seen not only via thetrainline.com, but from sister site QJump. Looking at the traffic figures for both these websites, the news only makes sense. There are only about 183 websites in all the UK more influential, at least according to Alexa.
Despite the obvious leverage thetrainline.com affords Trainline Investments, even with these record revenues, the company only managed to offset debt once the cost of sales was factor in. Interest payments of £12.4 million, caused Trainline Investments to cut losses to only £189,000. Still, compared with £8.8 million lost in the previous year, the company news has to have pleased investors. We wonder at the cost of sales, whether or not SEM and other conversion costs. However, Trainline Investment deals, such as the recent Key Travel one, are big pluses for the near future.