Priceline.com Inc is Getting Solid Benefit From Online Travel Growth ( PCLN,EXPE)

It has been solid year so far for Priceline.com Inc(NASDAQ:PCLN) as the stock has shown solid rally of over 59% year-to-date and made a decade high of $746.54 in the previous trading session. Over the past few months, there have been lots of chatter about the company with analysts seeing the stock reaching around $1000 soon, considering strong cash flow, solid bookings growth and net income has already three fold in the past two years.

Recently, analyst at Piper Jaffray raised their price target on the stock by $36 to $763 and maintained its Overweight rating. The firm projects a target of $1000 over the next two years with EPS for 2015 is expected to grow to $50.
Analysts are estimating the company to report EPS of $3.93 in the latest quarter, compared to a year ago profit of $2.66. Revenue is expected to grow by 27.60% to $1.03 billion, from $809.32 million a year ago.The company had beaten analysts’ estimates over the past four consecutive quarters and in the latest quarter the company had reported 32 cents better than analysts’ target.In mid-march, analyst at Lazard Capital lifted their price target on the stock to $750 a share and maintained their Buy rating on the stock.

Priceline.com Inc, along with its subsidiaries, serves as an online travel company and offers its customers hotel room reservations at over 210,000 hotels worldwide. The company also offers its customers car reservations at roughly 4,000 locations worldwide. The company had reported profit of $1.47 billion in 2011, from $489 million in 2009 cash flow per share is up almost 150% from $10.23 per share in 2009 to $24.52 a share in 2011. The company also has shown five-year sales growth rate of 30%.The company faces strong competition from Expedia Inc(NASDAQ:EXPE) and Expedia Inc(NASDAQ:EXPE)).Despite the recent rally as well as the most expensive stock within the industry, market participants are still bullish on  Priceline.com Inc and analysts are recommending to buy the stock on any pullback.