Home Inns Reports Results For Chinese Budget Hotel Sector

China's budget hotel company Home Inns & Hotels announced its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2008 and said total revenues for the quarter increased by 94.9% year-over-year to RMB357.0 million, including revenues of RMB28.2 million the recently acquired Top Star hotel chain.

Loss from operations for the quarter was RMB 7.8 million. Net operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2008 was RMB6.7 million, as the company experienced losses from Top Star. Capital expenditures for the quarter were RMB 248.3 million.

"Home Inns demonstrated strong growth during the first quarter by almost doubling the total revenues year-over-year," remarked David Sun, Home Inns' CEO. "Although our financial results were impacted by non-operational accounting measures, including a significant foreign exchange loss, our business remains strong and we are successfully managing our rapid expansion into new cities without sacrificing our operational capabilities or the quality of our product offering. Our large portfolio of hotels under construction also pressured our margin for the quarter, but positions us well for better profitability later on for the year."

Hotel expansion accelerated with 33 new hotels opened during the quarter, consisting of 25 leased-and-operated hotels and 8 franchised-and-managed hotels, compared with 11 new hotels opened in the first quarter of 2007, which consisted of 3 leased-and-operated hotels and eight franchised-and-managed hotels. As of March 31, 2008, the Home Inns hotel chain included 299 hotels in operation with an average of 122 rooms per hotel in operation, covering 75 cities in China and consisted of 220 leased-and-operated hotels and 79 franchised-and-managed hotels. Home Inns also has an additional 131 hotels under development, which consist of 86 leased-and-operated hotels and 45 franchised-and-managed hotels.

As of March 31, 2008, Home Inns had cash and cash equivalents of US$ 159.9 million.