Skyscanner, Edinburgh's ambitious technology star, saw pre-tax profit fall by 39 per cent last year as it stepped up investment and added over 200 staff.
The group's net earnings fell by 21 per cent, but it had £4.8million of cash at its year end compared with £7.5m of debt 12 months earlier, according to accounts just lodged at Companies House.
Last year the company bought Budapest mobile developer Distinction and Chinese search business Youbibi, launched hotel and car hire apps in more than 30 languages, and opened a business service which includes data analytics.
Skyscanner reported in February that its revenues were up 42 per cent to £93m, on a fall in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £2.6m to an unaudited £20m, though the year end accounts show it as £17.8m. Pre-tax profit slipped from the previous year's £17.1m to £10.4m.
Director rewards were also scaled back, from £467,000 to £339,000, including a cut from £206,626 to £175,625 for the highest paid, assumed to be chief executive and founding director Gareth Williams.
The group's shareholder funds rose by 20 per cent to £66m.
The report shows unique monthly visitors to its websites rose from 21m to 30m, and staff from 276 to 492, but since then the company has said visitors have risen to 35m and staff to over 600, two-thirds of them in Edinburgh. The remainder are spread across China, Singapore, the US, Spain and Hungary.
Non-UK business rose from 71 per cent to 73per cent, with the UK contributing £25m of revenue (up from £19m) Europe £44m (against £33m) and rest of the world £23m ( a rise from £14m).
Non-flight business accounts for around a quarter of the total, and last year saw an explosion in mobile device usage, with growth of 77 per cent.
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