Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars?

Posted by Hisoka on Friday June 10, 2011 @11:03AM
from the ask-hn dept.

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/airbnb.com+hotels.com/

As you can see, AirBnb gets just 1/10 the traffic as Hotels.com. The market cap of IACI (which owns Hotels.com) is around $3 billion.

Something doesn't seem right

( 5 comments | 6 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars? by pg on Friday June 10, 2011 @12:35PM (#2641464)

What matters is not traffic but profits, and particularly growth thereof.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars? by Hisoka on Saturday June 11, 2011 @01:31AM (#2643290)

If you look at the Compete graph, traffic has not exactly exploded in the past year or so...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars? by steventruong on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:52AM (#2643369)

Maybe we're looking at different things but because of the comparison between airbnb and hotels, it looks as if the line is flat but if you look at the numbers, it's gradually increasing. While they certainly don't have as much traffic, I do think they have a bigger market.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars? by jcol on Friday June 10, 2011 @01:02PM (#2641562)

Only sites that have the tracking code installed are accurate. Anything else is guessed (poorly).

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Re:Ask HN: Why is AirBnb worth 1 billion dollars? by webbruce on Friday June 10, 2011 @01:02PM (#2641556)

It's called #webbubble

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