Datalex has started its 2017 financial year strongly, reaffirming its guidance for a 15-20% full-year increase in adjusted EBITDA.

For the six months to end-Jun, total revenues came in at $30.3 million – up 24% on the same period last year. This generated an adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 million (up 17% ) and a net profit of $1.6 million (up 21%).

The statement identified three areas where Datalex is investing in order to generate new revenue streams – artificial intelligence, an OTA platform and digital payments.

Its AI and machine learning investments have, it claims, resulted in “new capabilities in dynamic pricing, offer creation and revenue optimisation for airline retailers” with the first customer getting its hands on the solution in the first half of 2018.

More immediate is the go-live of an “OTA platform for airlines” which will allow airlines to compete with OTAs and tour operators. Its long-standing customer and partner JetBlue is the launch airline for the platform and will go live “in the coming months”.

The other new revenue stream is digital payments. Datalex said that it has a number of customers using its cloud-based digital payments portfolio with more coming onstream in the next few months.

Elsewhere, it also highlighted its investments in innovation. Datalex Labs was launched in Silicon Valley in partnership with JetBlue Technology Ventures this March. Closer to home it is a founding partner of Propeller Shannon, an aviation and aerospace innovation hub based at the Irish airport. Boeing’s venture capital arm Boeing HorizonX is also involved.

Partnerships are also an important factor in Datalex’ growth trajectory. It has worked with IBM to integrate cloud and cognitive capabilities into its digital commerce platform and has already started marketing the solution to prospective customers. It has a similar tie-up in China with Neusoft, and is co-developing tools specifically for China.

Click here to read the H1 announcement; click here to see the presentation for analysts.

See also:
Payments: airlines’ under-appreciated, under-leveraged asset (Jun17)
Does a transition to digital retailing make sense for an airline? (April17)