Trainline launches £50m buyback after strong first half

Online travel platform Trainline on Thursday launched a £50m share buyback as ticket sales grew by almost a quarter in the first six months of its financial year.

Group net ticket sales grew 23% year-on-year to £2.6bn in the six months to August 31, driving growth in group revenue of 19% to £197m.

UK Consumer net ticket sales were £1.7bn, up 19% as more people switched to digital ticketing and passenger numbers continued to recover after the Covid pandemic.

"Growth was tempered somewhat by ongoing industrial action in the UK, with 11 strike days in the first half - estimated gross ticket sales impact of £5-6m per strike day," Trainline said.

International consumer net ticket sales rose 24% to £559m, led by Spain and Italy. Web sales growth slowed during the half given a normalising of demand year-on-year and increased competition in keyword auctions, following a more benign period last year coming out of Covid, plus some impact from changes to the presentation of search engine results.

Trainline said it expected annual net ticket sales growth of between +13% and +22%, revenue growth of between +13% and +22% and adjusted core earnings of between 2.15% and 2.25% of net ticket sales.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com