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Tongcheng-eLong was formed following the merger of travel service marketplace Tongcheng Network and eLong in last December. In the updated Hong Kong Exchanges Application Proof of Tongcheng-eLong Holdings posted on November 8 after the merger’s hearing, Tongcheng-eLong reported RMB 2.83 billion (USD 460.78 million) in revenue and RMB 845 million (USD 121.46 million) in profit in the six months up to end June. The profit level exceeded the full-year profit of RMB 686 million (USD 98.61 million) in 2017. The information shows that both Tongcheng and eLong had become profitable in 2017. According to the updated application proof, Tongcheng-eLong’s main revenue streams are its two core units – transportation ticketing and accommodation reservation. Both units reported the fastest growth in the industry in 2015-1017. In the first half of this year, the company registered turnover of RMB 47.23 billion (USD 6.79 billion) and RMB 10.73 billion (USD 1.54 billion) in ticketing operations and accommodation bookings respectively. The current asset of the company was valued at more than RMB 5 billion (USD 718.7 million) by the end of June. The transaction volume of the two companies last year was comparable and they were tied in the third place among OTAs in terms of transaction volume. Tongcheng-eLong plans to focus its research and development on the optimization of artificial intelligence, with which it will continue to provide users with personalized travel solutions and introduce virtual personal assistants for the entire journey. Tencent is currently one of its major shareholders owning 24.92% of the company's shares. With the traffic volume of Tencent, the number of Tongcheng-eLong users has been growing steadily. The number of active users of Tongcheng-eLong on Tencent’s platforms reached 128 million per month, an increase of 74% year-on-year. Among them, 106 million were from WeChat wallet and QQ wallet, and the rest 2,140 from other Tencent platforms. The cooperation between Tongcheng-eLong and Tencent has turned out mutually beneficial – Tencent delivers millions of users to Tongcheng-eLong’s portal, while Tongcheng-eLong selling travel services can increase user activities and improve user retention on the Tencent platform.
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