Thursday, May 15, 2008

Ctrip.com (NASDAQ:CTRP): Encountering Turbulence but Maintaining Buy - Citigroup

Citigroup comments on Ctrip.com (NASDAQ:CTRP) following earnings out last night saying they recommend taking advantage of any weakness as a buying opportunity for long-term investors.

Though Ctrip's guidance has historically been conservative, the company lowered rev YoY growth guidance to "30% for 2Q," but on the call, re-affirmed FY08 guidance of 35%. This lower guidance is primarily attributed to the earthquake in Sichuan, which has impacted travel to the province and dampened overall travel sentiment.

Addressing recent concerns over deteriorating domestic traffic YoY growth from the Big 3 Chinese airlines, with YoY growth slowing to 3.9% in March and 3.7% in April, the firm stresses that Ctrip continues to outpace the market due to market share gains from local agencies, with air ticketing revs up 68% YoY vs. the market up 10% in 1Q.

Reits Buy and $78 tgt.

Notablecalls: I feel CTRP represents a pretty solid bounce candidate. The co continues to execute in the midst of a perfect storm (snowstorms, earthquake in Sichuan, upcoming Olympics, dampening overall demand).

The stock will get hit today but I will be buying it starting from $57 (long here some but willing to avrg down) as I feel there is a lot of inst. buy interest in the name.

Just a hiccup.

1 comment:

upsidetrader said...

nc
look at the market cap and then look at the sales-this could be a $20 number.I care not a wit what these ANALysts say