Trip.com Group Limited Q4 FY2025 earnings call

Management will focus investment priorities on three key areas: inbound tourism, social responsibility initiatives, and AI innovation. Inbound travel is a growth driver, with 20 million inbound travelers served in 2025, connecting demand to 150,000 hotels. Launched one-stop inbound service counters, layover tour programs, and multilingual self-service facilities. Invested over RMB 1 billion in inbound travel. International market saw gross bookings on international OTA platform increase ~60% y-o-y. Domestic travel demand steady, private tours business grew >20%, corporate travel supported over 28,000 Chinese enterprises. Silver generation travel offerings evolved, Entertainment Plus Travel had triple-digit growth. Invested in ecosystem, including social responsibility efforts and technology innovation.

For the full year 2025, core OTA business recorded gross bookings of approximately RMB 1.1 trillion. Group net revenue totaled RMB 62.4 billion. Accommodation reservation and related revenue accounted for RMB 26.1 billion, representing 41.8% of net revenue. Air ticket reservation and related revenue was RMB 14.3 billion, accounting for 22.9% of net revenue. In Q4 2025, net revenue was RMB 15.4 billion, up 21% y-o-y. Accommodation reservation revenue was RMB 6.3 billion, up 21% y-o-y. Transportation ticketing revenue was RMB 5.4 billion, up 12% y-o-y. Packaged tour revenue was RMB 1.1 billion, up 21% y-o-y. Corporate travel revenue was RMB 808 million, up 15% y-o-y. For full year 2025, corporate travel revenue was RMB 2.8 billion, up 13% y-o-y.

In Q4 2025, net revenue was RMB 15.4 billion, up 21% y-o-y. Full year 2025 core OTA business gross bookings RMB 1.1 trillion, net revenue RMB 62.4 billion. Confident in business and will continue disciplined investment. Looking ahead, focus on serving travelers, partners, and destinations long-term.

In January, received notice from State Administration for Market Regulation regarding initiation of regulatory investigation. Trip.com Group is cooperating fully with relevant authorities.

Q: Could management share any update regarding the recent SAMR investigation? How do you assess the potential impact on your business in 2026 and longer term?

A: Trip.com Group is actively cooperating with the state administration for market regulation of China throughout its review process. And we continue to engage constructively and transparently and will provide further updates as appropriate in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. In alignment with relevant policies, we remain committed to fostering a transparent and sustainable environment for all the stakeholders. And looking ahead, we will continue to focus our investments on three core priorities. First, driving inbound tourism. This creates new growth opportunity for our domestic partners and foster a more open, globally connected market opportunity. And second, deepening social responsibility initiatives. We reinvested in communities, empower our partners, and support local economies, all while encouraging innovation that drives sustainable growth. Third, accelerating our AI innovations. We are building a scalable AI infrastructure to enhance partner efficiency. improve visibility and break down barriers, enabling the industry to deliver better content and reach more customers.

Q: As AI agents like Gemini and the Queen show strong capabilities in personalized recommendations and closing the transaction loop, how do you evaluate the impact on your OTA business model? And what is your strategy to sustain your value proposition in the travel industry?

A: We view the rapid advancement of generative AI as a catalyst that validates and accelerates our long-term strategy. The core OTA model is built on three pillars, inspiration, transaction, and service. While AI agents excel at inspiring travel, they also reinforce the critical importance of our transactional and service layers, which are central to our business. A true closed loop in travel requires more than just itinerary generation. It demands deep integration with a complex global supply chain, airlines, hotels, local activity providers, along with live rates, secure payments, and guaranteed fulfillment. This is where our operational expertise and service capabilities excel. We view general AI agents as the next generation of user entry points set to capture share from traditional search and social media. Externally, we are moving beyond simple collaboration to build direct agent to agent transactional capabilities with leading AI partners across the globe. Internally, we are investing to advance our native AI agent to deliver sophisticated agentic search and booking to handle complex multi-step travel planning and booking for our users. We are confident in our ability to lead in this new environment by focusing on the following areas that are difficult for general AI models to replicate. First, proprietary data and vertical AI, the rise of powerful open source models accelerates our strategy. We leverage the best available AI technology as a foundation, but our true advantage is the ability to fine tune these models into vertical travel experts, using our decades of proprietary data, real booking data, user preferences, and millions of verified reviews. Our AI tools, like Trip Genie and Trip Planner, not only offer personalized recommendations, but also real-time, bookable results grounded in live inventory and pricing. As our second strong supply chain, we have deep, long-standing relationships with hundreds of thousands of partners worldwide, giving us access to comprehensive inventory, live rates, and direct technical integrations. While AI Agent may suggest options, we confirm bookings instantly at reliable and real-time rates for our users. This last-mile guarantee is a core part of our business. Third, end-to-end service and trust. Travel is a high-stakes emotional purchase. When issues arise, travelers need reliable support, not just an algorithm. Our holistic journey management, backed by one-stop platform and 24-7 global support, provides the trust and security that standalone AI agents cannot match. We are not just a booking tool. We are a true travel partner.

Q: Could you share some color about the booking trend during the Chinese New Year? How have consumer sentiments been trending recently? Can you also break down your business by geographic contribution?

A: The 2026 Chinese New Year marked the longest New Year holiday in recent years, extended by one additional day compared with last year. This incremental holiday time meaningfully stimulated travel demand and supported strong overall performance. Our domestic hotel business records robust double-digit growth, while ADR increasing modestly year-over-year, reflecting healthy demand dynamics. We achieved the double-digit growth in our album business, with notable momentum in long-haul definitions, especially across Europe. With regard to the international market, our globalization strategy continues to yield strong results, with our international OTA platform delivering solid growth. Quarter to date, our international OTA platform has achieved the year-over-year growth of approximately 60%. As we continue our expansion into key APEC markets this year, we remain committed to investing strategically to enhance our brand presence, localize our products, and drive sustainable growth. With regard to the travel sentiment, with people's growing desire to explore, travel sentiment remains strong worldwide. Leisure travel continues to be the primary driver of the market growth. In 2025, average spending per user remained stable compared to last year, reflecting sustainable and healthy consumer demand for travel experiences. While business travel also remained robust over the past year, we are strategically positioned to capture this demand, particularly by supporting the global expansion of Chinese enterprises through our comprehensive corporate travel solutions. Our international business contributed about 40% of total revenue and bookings in 2025, up from around 35% in 2024. We expect this momentum to continue, mainly fueled by the rapid growth of our Trip.com brand.

Q: Have you observed intensifying computation in domestic travel market? And how do you maintain your competitive edge in this environment?

A: Competition in the domestic travel market has always remained dynamic, which reflects the segment's strong growth potential and continued volatility. We view this as a healthy sign for the industry. Our competitive edge is anchored in a couple of friends. First of all, we have always focused on high level of the services. we offer 24 hours times seven excellent customer service. When you call our call center globally, we offer 24 hours times seven service, and any agent will be able to address any questions with you very effectively. Secondly, we offer very comprehensive products. So when you travel with us, We offer flight, hotel, vacation package, rental car, anything that you need during your trip, which is also very convenient for our customers. In the unexpected events, such an earthquake, of conflicts, regional conflicts due to wars. We reach out to our customers within two minutes to make sure they are moved to the safe area. Our comprehensive products enable them to be rescued to their home country on a timely basis. The third one is our global coverage. Not only we have a very good service and products domestically, we also developed a very strong service capability and inventory coverage globally. So customers, when they travel with us, not only they can have peace in mind within the country when they travel around the world, we are also behind them to support them. So all these strengths give us the competitive advantage, and we will continuously focus on our customers, making sure we offer the best product and best service to them.

Q: With Crypto.com achieving another strong quarter of growth overseas, could you share some operational highlights and outlook for the 2026?

A: In 2025, growth booking for our international OTA platform increased by around 60% year-over-year. APAC remains the primary region of our international expansion, while booking trends from the Middle East and other regions also demonstrate very strong growth potential. Inbound tourism is a key contributor to our international business growth. In 2025, we served approximately 20 million inbound travelers driven by rapid growth in visa-free regions. We remain focused on growing our APAC business in the coming 2026 and continue to explore opportunities in other regions with a disciplined approach. With ongoing improvements in business scale, product innovation, and brand penetration, we expect to improve profitability trajectory of our international OTA business, particularly in the APAC region. Given the strong growth potential of international travel market, we will continue investing for sustainable growth. Our mobile first strategy, supported by intuitive front-end design and reliable back-end services and product capabilities will help us enhance our global brand recognition and drive steady international expansion.

Q: If you can share some color on your international business, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. in light of evolving competition, especially from players like Agoda?

A: In 2025, we'll remain focused on expanding our presence in APEC market. Our continued execution across the key markets contributed to the rising brand recognition among local customers. As we localize our efforts is deepening, we are deploying market-specific strategies to better align products and services with local travel needs. Supported by improvements in product competitiveness and mobile booking experiences, active users' growth is significant in major APAC markets. In Q4 2025, our international bookings reached a record high. The growth and strong results reflect the effectiveness of our globalization strategy built through long-term experiences and supported by disciplined marketing investments Going forward, we will continue to prioritize APAC region with online penetration and travel sentiment continue to improve. We remain focused in our execution for strategies to develop the comprehensive products localized service, localized marketing strategy, and excellent product offerings. So we intend to further penetrate in the Asia Pacific region and provide excellent services to more and more customers in that region.

Q: Could you please provide an update on your shareholder return program?

A: In 2025, we fully utilized the authorized share repurchase quarter under the 2025 repurchase plan and completed additional repurchases in the fourth quarter. Going forward, We remain committed to delivering long-term shareholder value through sustainable business growth as well as disciplined execution of our capital return program.