BEIJING, May 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- eLong, Inc. (NASDAQ:
LONG), a leading online travel service provider in China, today announced a strategic investment
by Tencent Holdings Limited (SEHK
00700), one of the largest providers of Internet, mobile and
telecommunication value-added services in China, as well as by Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:
EXPE), the world's largest online travel company and eLong's
controlling shareholder.
Tencent has acquired approximately
16% of the outstanding shares for a total purchase price of
$84.4 million and becomes the second
largest shareholder of eLong. Expedia has acquired
approximately 8% of the outstanding shares for $41.2 million and now holds 56% of the
outstanding shares.
The strategic investment in eLong represents the first
significant investment in the travel market by Tencent. eLong and Tencent plan to deepen their cooperation in the
future, including forming a business partnership to develop online
travel products and distribute eLong's hotel supply to Tencent's online community of 674 million(1)
active user accounts in China.
eLong's hotel supply portfolio now covers over 150,000 hotel
properties worldwide, including more than 19,000 hotels in
China, and more than 130,000
internationally through its seamless connection with Expedia.
"We at eLong could not be more excited about working with
China's online market leader to
develop new travel offerings and give more Internet users access to
the largest global selection of hotels in the world," said
Guangfu Cui, CEO of eLong. "Given
Tencent's user base and its reach
across multiple platforms, including portal, mobile, instant
messaging and social networking, we believe consumers throughout
China will benefit from this
partnership, while eLong and Expedia supply partners will enjoy
incremental access to significant internet traffic and customers in
China."
"Tencent is focused on creating
value for our users. We believe this partnership will combine our
online platforms with eLong's online travel expertise to bring
innovative and quality online travel services to our users. Through
the implementation of our open platform strategy, we will continue
to enhance our service offering to fulfill users' various lifestyle
needs online," said Martin Lau,
President of Tencent Holdings
Limited.
"China is a key region for us
from a strategic perspective," said Dara
Khosrowshahi, president and CEO of Expedia, Inc. "Aligning
ourselves with the online industry leader in China, and increasing our own investment in
eLong, strengthens our position in this critical market, and will
allow eLong to strengthen its outstanding online hotel services and
provide air and hotel products to more and more customers in
China."
About eLong
eLong, Inc. (NASDAQ: LONG) is a leading online travel company in
China. Headquartered in
Beijing, eLong has a national
presence across China, and uses
web-based distribution technologies and a 24-hour call center to
provide consumers with accurate travel information and high quality
online and offline hotel and air booking services. eLong's products
offer business and leisure customers meaningful savings and a
worry-free travel booking experience by empowering consumers to
make informed travel decisions by providing convenient, easy to use
online features such as maps, destination guides, photographs,
virtual tours, user reviews and search tools. In addition to
a selection of more than 19,000 hotels in 700 cities across
China, eLong also offers consumers
the ability to make bookings at over 135,000 international hotels
in more than 100 countries worldwide, and can fulfill domestic and
international air ticket reservations in over 80 major cities
across China. eLong operates
websites including http://www.elong.com, http://www.elong.net, and
http://www.xici.net.
About Tencent
Tencent aims to enrich the
interactive online experience of Internet users by providing a
comprehensive range of Internet and wireless value-added services.
Through its various online platforms, including Instant Messaging
QQ, web portal QQ.com, the QQ Game platform under Tencent Games, multi-media social networking
service Qzone and wireless portal, Tencent services the largest online community in
China and fulfills the user's
needs for communication, information, entertainment and e-Commerce
on the Internet. Tencent has three
main streams of revenues: Internet value-added services, mobile and
telecommunications value-added services and online advertising.
Shares of Tencent Holdings Limited
are traded on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong
Limited, under stock code 00700. The Company became one of the 43
constituents of the Hang Seng Index (HSI) on June 10, 2008. For more information, please visit
www.tencent.com/ir.
About Expedia, Inc.
Expedia, Inc. is the largest online travel company in the world,
with an extensive brand portfolio that includes more than 90
localized Expedia.com®- and Hotels.com®-branded sites; leading U.S.
discount travel site Hotwire®; leading agency hotel company
Venere.com™; Egencia®, the world's fifth largest corporate travel
management company; the world's largest travel community
TripAdvisor® Media Group; destination activities provider
ExpediaLocalExpert®; luxury travel specialist Classic Vacations®;
and China's second largest booking
site eLong™. The company delivers consumers value in leisure and
business travel, drives incremental demand and direct bookings to
travel suppliers, and provides advertisers vast opportunity to
reach the most valuable audience of in-market travel consumers
anywhere through TripAdvisor Media Group and Expedia Media
Solutions. Expedia also powers bookings for some of the world's
leading airlines and hotels, top consumer brands, high traffic
websites, and thousands of active affiliates through Expedia®
Affiliate Network. For more information, visit
www.expediainc.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release concerning the future business,
plans, strategies, operating results, financial condition and
objectives of management for future operations of Tencent, eLong, Inc. and/or Expedia, Inc. are
"forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A
of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as
"anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast,"
"intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will"
and similar expressions as they relate to any of Tencent, eLong, Inc. or Expedia are intended to
identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive
means of doing so. These forward-looking statements are based upon
management's current views and expectations with respect to future
events and are not a guarantee of future performance. Furthermore,
these statements are, by their nature, subject to a number of risks
and uncertainties that could cause Tencent's, eLong's and/or Expedia's actual
results, performance, time frames or achievements to be materially
different from any future results, performance, time frames or
achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking
statements. Given these risks, uncertainties and other factors, you
should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements. In evaluating these statements, you should specifically
consider the risks described in Tencent's filings with the Hong Kong Stock
Exchange and eLong's and Expedia's filings with the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission, as applicable. Except as
required by law, none of Tencent,
eLong or Expedia assumes any obligation to update these
forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons
actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in
these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes
available in the future. All forward-looking statements contained
in this press release are qualified by reference to this cautionary
statement.
(1) As of Q1 2011, Tencent had 674
million active user accounts, which are defined as those logging
into the network at least once during the last 30 days
SOURCE Expedia, Inc.; eLong, Inc.