Ctrip's 2025 financial report shows a surge in net profit driven by investments; CEO resigns during antitrust investigation

Published by: Shanxi Evening News · Scale Finance

As a leading global online travel industry giant, Ctrip’s financial report not only exposes its own structural development issues but also reflects the growth bottlenecks faced by the online travel industry in the post-pandemic era.

On February 26, 2026, Ctrip Group released its unaudited financial results for Q4 and the full year 2025. The report shows a total annual revenue of 62.409 billion yuan, a 17% increase year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 33.294 billion yuan, a sharp 95% surge compared to the previous year. Behind this seemingly impressive performance, however, lie multiple concerns such as sluggish core business growth, profit reliance on non-recurring gains, ineffective cost and expense control, and regulatory and governance uncertainties.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

As a top player in the global online travel industry, Ctrip’s financial report not only reveals its own structural development issues but also highlights the growth bottlenecks of the online travel sector in the post-pandemic period. From key financial data to business segment performance, from asset structure changes to corporate governance adjustments, 2025 was a year of “digital appeal,” but not a year of “solid fundamentals.”

01

The Truth Behind the Net Profit Surge:

90% of Growth Driven by Investments, Weak Core Business Profitability

The most eye-catching aspect of the financial report is the nearly doubled net profit growth. However, peeling back the data reveals that this increase was not driven by Ctrip’s core travel services but primarily by non-recurring gains from large investment returns, which became the main contributor. The contribution of the main business to profits was significantly diluted, and the “value” of the performance was severely lacking.

In 2025, net profit attributable to shareholders was 33.294 billion yuan, up 162.27 billion yuan from 17.067 billion yuan in 2024, a 95% increase.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

However, the report clearly states that in 2025, the company recorded 19.9 billion yuan in investment income under “Other gains/losses,” compared to only 1.1 billion yuan in 2024. The increase in investment income alone reached 18.8 billion yuan, exceeding the total net profit increase. This means that Ctrip’s profit growth in 2025 was entirely driven by investment gains, and even the incremental investment income covered the potential shortfall in core business profits. Excluding this 19.9 billion non-recurring investment income, the profit generated by Ctrip’s main business in 2025 was actually much lower than the reported figure, indicating weak profitability support from its core operations.

This “artificially inflated” and unstable profit is even more evident. In Q3 2025, net profit attributable to shareholders reached 19.89 billion yuan, but in Q4 it plummeted to 4.281 billion yuan, a 78.47% quarter-over-quarter drop. The core reason was that in Q3, the company recognized large investment gains, while in Q4, core business profits failed to effectively carry over.

Furthermore, the operating profit from core business in Q4 was only 2.534 billion yuan. Even when adding other gains, pre-tax profit was just 5.136 billion yuan, vastly different from the 23.098 billion yuan in Q3. This sharp fluctuation caused by non-recurring gains reflects a lack of stability in Ctrip’s profit system, with core business not yet able to serve as the main pillar of profit growth.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

Even looking at the company’s key non-GAAP net profit, which is often highlighted, the underlying support still comes from investment income. In 2025, non-GAAP net profit attributable to shareholders was 31.839 billion yuan, a 76.48% increase year-over-year. However, the report discloses that after excluding items like equity incentives and fair value changes, this figure still includes 15.9 billion yuan in other investment-related gains, compared to only 61 million yuan in 2024. In other words, even after removing multiple non-recurring factors, the growth of non-GAAP net profit still heavily depends on investment income, and the profitability growth of Ctrip’s core business is far less impressive than the financial figures suggest.

02

Segment Growth Divergence:

Core Segment Slows Down, Limited Resilience to Cycles

In 2025, Ctrip’s total revenue reached 62.409 billion yuan, up 17%. However, performance across different segments varied significantly. The core segment’s growth slowed, niche businesses stagnated, and all main businesses were heavily affected by seasonal fluctuations, with large quarter-over-quarter swings. This indicates insufficient resilience to industry cycles and reflects structural issues in Ctrip’s business layout.

As Ctrip’s largest revenue segment, accommodation bookings generated 26.1 billion yuan in revenue in 2025, a 21% increase, accounting for 42% of total revenue. This was the only major segment to grow faster than overall revenue, mainly driven by the recovery in global accommodation demand.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

However, the second-largest segment, transportation ticketing, showed clear signs of slowdown, with revenue of 22.489 billion yuan in 2025, up only 11% year-over-year—far below the overall 17% growth and significantly lower than the accommodation segment, which accounted for 36% of total revenue. As a core traffic entry point for online travel platforms, the slowdown in transportation ticketing not only indicates a decline in Ctrip’s competitiveness in this area but also suggests insufficient growth momentum in its core traffic business, making it difficult to effectively expand overall operations.

More concerning is the near stagnation of the packaged travel business, which generated 4.688 billion yuan in 2025, up only 8%, the slowest among all segments, representing just 7% of total revenue.

Packaged travel is a key area for online travel platforms to increase customer spend and explore consumption potential, and it is also Ctrip’s strategic focus for high-quality tourism. However, its small scale and low growth rate indicate that Ctrip has yet to develop a competitive edge in high-end tourism product development, integration, and promotion, preventing it from becoming a new growth driver.

The corporate travel segment grew 13% YoY to 2.829 billion yuan in 2025, but only accounts for 5% of total revenue. Its small scale limits its impact on overall performance.

The only bright spot is that corporate travel revenue in Q4 reached 808 million yuan, a 7% increase over Q3, making it the only segment to show quarter-over-quarter growth, thanks to the rigid demand in corporate travel. However, due to its small scale, its contribution to overall performance remains limited.

Seasonal fluctuations are a major “pain point” for Ctrip’s main business. In Q4, all core segments experienced significant quarter-over-quarter declines: accommodation revenue down 22%, transportation ticketing down 15%, and packaged travel down 34%. Relying solely on slight growth in corporate travel cannot offset these declines. This indicates that Ctrip’s business heavily depends on peak seasons, with significant revenue drops during off-peak periods. The company has yet to innovate or expand markets to activate demand during slow seasons, reflecting insufficient resilience to industry cycles. Such large seasonal swings directly lead to revenue and profit instability, increasing operational challenges.

Additionally, Ctrip emphasizes “steady growth across all international segments,” with international OTA platform bookings up about 60% YoY and approximately 20 million inbound tourists served annually. However, financial data shows that international growth has not translated into substantial revenue or profit increases. Core revenue still relies heavily on the domestic market, and the international business’s profit model remains immature, failing to become a new growth engine. Ctrip’s “globalization” strategy remains at the scale-expansion stage, with no breakthrough in profitability.

03

Ineffective Cost and Expense Control:

Growth Outpaces Revenue, Profitability Continues to Erode

Behind the scale expansion, Ctrip’s costs and expenses rose rigidly. In 2025, the company’s cost of revenue and various expenses grew faster than revenue, with high expense ratios. Coupled with seasonal effects, Q4 profitability was further pressured, reflecting that cost and expense control efficiency did not improve in tandem with scale, continuously eroding core business profitability.

On the cost side, Ctrip’s total cost of revenue in 2025 was 12.122 billion yuan, up 21% YoY, significantly higher than the 17% revenue growth. The cost-to-revenue ratio increased from 18.7% in 2024 to 19.4% in 2025.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

This means that for every 100 yuan of revenue, Ctrip’s costs have increased compared to 2024. The scale effect not only failed to materialize but also led to rigid cost increases. In Q4, the cost of revenue was 3.24 billion yuan, up 23% YoY, higher than the 21% revenue growth, further increasing cost pressure.

Cost control on the expense side was even more problematic. Among the three major operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses and R&D expenses grew significantly faster than revenue, becoming main profit erosive factors. In 2025, sales and marketing expenses totaled 14.904 billion yuan, up 25%, far exceeding the 17% revenue growth. The expense ratio rose from 22.3% in 2024 to 23.8% in 2025. The sharp increase in sales and marketing expenses was mainly due to intensified promotion and customer acquisition efforts, but the expense growth far outpaced revenue, indicating rising customer acquisition costs and declining marketing efficiency.

R&D expenses, the second-largest cost, reached 15.136 billion yuan in 2025, up 15%, slightly below revenue growth but still accounting for 24% of total revenue. In Q4, R&D expenses were 4.028 billion yuan, with a 26% expense ratio. Combined with a 29% sales and marketing expense ratio, these core costs exceeded 50%, significantly eroding current profits. Ctrip stated that the increase in R&D expenses was mainly due to higher personnel costs, but the R&D investments have not yet translated into clear competitive advantages, and the slowdown in core business growth suggests R&D efficiency needs improvement.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

The double increase in costs and expenses directly led to a decline in Ctrip’s core business profitability.

In 2025, operating profit was 15.773 billion yuan, up only 11.26% YoY, far below the 17% revenue growth; operating profit margin dropped from 26.6% in 2024 to 25.3% in 2025. In Q4, operating profit was 2.534 billion yuan, a 54.5% quarter-over-quarter plunge, with margin falling from 30.4% to 16.5%. Even the company’s key adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was 3.415 billion yuan, down 46.2% QoQ, with EBITDA margin dropping from 35% to 22%. These data collectively indicate that Ctrip’s cost and expense control has failed, and scale expansion has not brought about a corresponding improvement in profitability, instead dragging down core business performance.

04

Asset Structure and Corporate Governance:

Liquidity Shrinks, Regulatory and Leadership Uncertainties

Beyond financial and operational issues, Ctrip’s asset structure in 2025 showed signs of pressure, and recent governance adjustments and ongoing regulatory investigations cast a shadow over its future development. Multiple uncertainties compound, testing Ctrip’s resilience.

Ctrip’s liquidity reserves have contracted, with assets leaning toward investments and insufficient core business assets. As of the end of 2025, cash and cash equivalents plus restricted cash totaled 46.451 billion yuan, down 9.1% from 51.093 billion yuan at the end of 2024. Core liquidity has decreased, while short-term investments increased to 32.007 billion yuan, but overall liquid assets’ immediate payment capacity has weakened.

Source: Ctrip Group Financial Report

Meanwhile, accounts receivable increased sharply, with net receivables reaching 15.241 billion yuan at the end of 2025, up 22.3% from 12.459 billion yuan in 2024, outpacing the 17% revenue growth. This indicates a lengthening of downstream collection cycles, reduced receivables turnover, and lower cash flow recovery efficiency, with potential bad debt risks.

In terms of asset allocation, Ctrip’s investment assets surged, reaching 61.375 billion yuan at the end of 2025, a 30% increase YoY, accounting for 23% of total assets (up from 19.4%). Meanwhile, core assets like fixed assets and intangible assets grew only slightly—fixed assets from 5.053 billion to 5.445 billion yuan, intangible assets from 12.84 billion to 13.013 billion yuan. The company’s asset allocation has shifted toward investments, reflecting a lack of confidence in core growth and a preference for seeking profits through investments.

On February 25, 2026, Ctrip announced that founder Fan Min resigned from the board and CEO positions, and another founder, Ji Qi, resigned from the board. The departure of these two core founders marks a significant milestone in Ctrip’s history.

Although the company appointed Wu Minyi and Xiao Yang as independent non-executive directors to improve governance, both are former core founders whose roles in strategic planning, business layout, and corporate culture are irreplaceable. Their departure may cause strategic instability and management upheaval.

Looking at the backgrounds of the new independent directors, Wu Minyi has a strong finance background, and Xiao Yang specializes in investment analysis. Neither has extensive operational management experience in online travel. The departure of seasoned industry professionals from the previous board leaves a less diverse and less industry-specific governance structure, potentially weakening strategic decision-making and oversight.

More critically, Ctrip faces unresolved antitrust regulatory risks, which hang like a “Damocles sword” over the company.

In January 2026, Ctrip received a notice of antitrust investigation from the State Administration for Market Regulation, based on the Anti-Monopoly Law of China. The investigation is ongoing. Ctrip stated that it cannot predict the outcome or status of the investigation, but if a penalty is imposed, it could involve hefty fines and business rectifications. As an online travel platform, key areas under scrutiny may include platform commissions, merchant cooperation models, and traffic distribution mechanisms. Business adjustments required by regulators could directly impact revenue and profit models, and long-term expansion plans.

Although Ctrip claims its operations remain normal, the uncertainty surrounding the antitrust investigation not only affects its capital market performance but also hampers merchant cooperation and market expansion. Continued regulatory risks increase operational uncertainty and test management’s risk response capabilities.

Ctrip’s 2025 financial report is a typical “impressive on paper but with underlying concerns” document. The surge in net profit masks issues such as sluggish core business growth, ineffective cost control, unreasonable asset structure, regulatory risks, and governance uncertainties, casting a shadow over future development. As a leader in the online travel industry, Ctrip’s predicament also reflects common challenges faced by the global online travel sector in the post-pandemic era: growth bottlenecks after demand recovery, intensifying industry competition, rigid cost increases, and tightening regulations.

To break the growth deadlock, Ctrip needs to refocus on its core business, abandon reliance on investment gains, and concentrate on its main segments—accommodation, transportation, and travel products—through product innovation, service upgrades, and efficiency improvements to strengthen competitiveness and achieve substantive revenue and profit growth.

Additionally, it must optimize cost and expense management, improve R&D and marketing efficiency, reduce customer acquisition and management costs, and unlock profitability in core operations. It should also enhance corporate governance, ensure strategic continuity, stabilize management, and strengthen industry expertise on the board to support strategic implementation. Finally, proactive measures are needed to address regulatory risks by standardizing operations, improving communication with regulators, and optimizing business models to mitigate policy impacts.