We are taking a break from our usual industry analysis and latest trends pieces to share very exciting news: As of 3 March 2022, Hitit is going to be listed in the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) stock exchange through an Initial Public Offering with the ticker code HTTBT.
You might already be aware of our IPO plans as they have been announced through official channels last year and have since been widely discussed throughout the industry, having been picked up as an industry insight story by T2RL among others.
So while the listing itself comes as no surprise we wanted to elaborate on why we decided to go public at this stage of our journey, and what lies ahead for not just Hitit but our entire Crane Partners Community – and, by extension, the whole aviation industry.
Thanks to the trust being placed in us by our Partners, Hitit has been one of the fastest-growing names in the airline and travel solutions space. The number of Partners served by our Crane solutions has almost quadrupled over the last three years, and today we are proud to count more than 50 Partners from 40 countries all around the world among our Hitit Community. As of today, Hitit is the 3rd largest global passenger service system provider in the world with Crane PSS, and we have also made significant headway into new ways of serving our Partners with the development of our agent distribution platform and air cargo solutions over the last couple of years.
With this accelerating growth and expanding portfolio, and in conjunction with its Partners Community, Hitit is now poised to reach even greater heights. While we are looking to keep increasing our pace across the board, we have identified four new and exciting ways of better serving the air travel industry:
First and foremost, we will keep strengthening our unique position in the industry as the “One Stop Shop” for all things air travel. Today Hitit is the only solution provider able to seamlessly serve any and all airline business models, legacy, hybrid, low-cost, and everything else in-between, from within a single solution suite. Not only that, but our Crane portfolio covers every single step in the airline business lifecycle from planning to accounting, from distribution and ticketing to travel merchandising, from ground operations to cargo. We will continue to invest in and develop our products to keep at the cutting edge of changing market dynamics, and further leverage our evolving corporate governance structure as a publicly-traded company.
As an extension of the above, we will keep pushing the envelope and expanding into new lines of business where we can bring our unique value proposition to a greater part of our industry. Back in 2018, we have launched a truly next-generation travel agent distribution platform in certain pilot markets, and now we are going to take it global. As a travel IT innovator certified at the highest levels of IATA New Distribution Capability (NDC) and Airline Retailing Maturity (ARM), we look forward to providing the so-far-underserved travel agent space with the dynamic and scalable solutions they need and deserve.
To underpin all of these we are also accelerating our cloud investments. Hitit is among the industry leaders when it comes to cloud, having been running a hybrid-cloud infrastructure with Google Cloud since 2017. We are now in the midst of exploring several possible avenues to expand our cloud footprint and facilitate a greater shift to the public cloud, which will enable us to better serve our Partners not only with even greater performance and scalability but also by harnessing the cutting edge capabilities in key areas like machine learning, real-time data analytics and the Internet of Things.
Last but not least, we will be expanding our physical presence around the world as well. As of today, Hitit serves its Community through our headquarters and multiple offices in Turkey as well as in the Netherlands and Pakistan, and in addition to expanding our workforce and operations in all of these, we are in the process of establishing new local offices in different regions across the globe. These expansions will allow us to grow ever closer with our existing and prospective Partners and provide services such as user training and support in a localized manner.
It is an exciting time to be part of the Hitit Community, and our sincere thanks go out to all of our Partners who made it possible. Here is to many more exciting steps to come on our journey!
For further information and inquiries about Hitit going public, please visit: https://hitit.com/investor-relations