Trip.com Group Ltd., sponsored ADR (TCOM.US), which started off with a bang in the Year of the Horse: outrage over sky-high ticket prices, and the departure of the two co-founders.

Middle East change, and domestically, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR (TCOM.US) has also been thrust into the spotlight. $5.55 million expensive plane tickets flooded the screen, angering Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR This weekend, after the United States launched a military strike against Iran, several countries closed their airspace, Dubai airport suspended flights, many flights were canceled, and many tourists were stranded at the airport. In this extreme situation, Damascus became one of the few places in the Middle East where flights could still depart. However, on February 28th, a netizen shared that on the Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR APP, a ticket from Damascus to Shanghai was priced as high as $5.55 million, with lower prices ranging from $3.82 million to $1.18 million to $700,000. The exorbitant ticket prices immediately sparked discussions among netizens. Even though it was understood that ticket prices would soar due to imbalances in supply and demand in the tense situation in the Middle East, the price reaching over $5.5 million was still considered outrageous. Some netizens joked if they were buying a plane instead of a ticket. Some others believed that it was more likely a system error. Indeed, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR quickly took down the abnormal flights and explained that it was a mistake by the supplier's operation, causing abnormal display on the website. They clarified that the actual ticket price was around ten thousand yuan and emphasized that the ticket prices on the platform were entered and sold by the suppliers themselves, and Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR only displayed and facilitated the transactions without benefiting from them. While the bug was fixed, the public opinion online about Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR did not disappear. Some netizens pointed out that the response from Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR was merely shifting blame. As an intermediary platform, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR should also have the obligation to review the prices given by the suppliers. This incident directly reflected a loophole in Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR's internal system in terms of monitoring supplier prices. In response to this, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR stated to the media that they would improve their internal pricing situation, including auditing prices for all routes, to ensure fair and transparent pricing and to avoid exorbitant ticket prices. Frequently summoned, just facing anti-monopoly investigations The dissatisfaction of netizens towards platforms like Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR and other OTAs has already been a long-standing issue. Issues like "ticket markup" and "big data discrimination" have been common topics, and netizens have been constantly expressing their discontent over the years. In August and September of last year, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR was summoned by the market supervision bureaus of Guizhou Province and Zhengzhou, Henan Province respectively for possible implementation of "either-or," using technical means to intervene in merchants' pricing, breaking contracts or increasing prices after orders are placed, price fraud, price hiking, as well as "using technical means to unreasonably restrict transactions and pricing within the platform," which led to the summon. In December, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Homestay Industry Association launched an antitrust lawsuit against OTA platforms including Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR for unfair competition. At that time, the Yunnan Homestay Association stated that individual OTA platforms, including Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR, utilized their dominant market position to implement unfair competition practices on the Yunnan homestay industry, including but not limited to "either-or" clauses, arbitrary commission increases, etc. Among them, the controversy against Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR was more prominent. Under the multiple summons and collective rights protection, on January 14th of this year, based on preliminary investigations, the State Administration for Market Regulation initiated an antitrust investigation against Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR Group Co., Ltd for suspected monopolistic behaviors due to abuse of market dominance in accordance with the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China. Following the antitrust investigation, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR was summoned by the relevant departments twice. For example, during the Spring Festival, on February 12th, 12 third-party online train ticket sales platforms including Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR were collectively summoned by the Beijing Market Supervision Administration, explicitly stating that it is strictly forbidden to imply that payment can grant priority ticket purchasing privileges and to promptly rectify misleading advertising after tickets are sold out. On February 13th, six travel platforms including Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR were jointly summoned by the National Financial Supervision Administration, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the People's Bank of China due to the "embedded loan" model. However, even after the summons in the past half month, according to Sichuan Daily, the six summoned platforms including Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR still have paid ticket grabbing services available for sale, implying the existence of "special channels" or "technological advantages." Some platforms deliberately avoided addressing rectification issues, using reasons such as "business secrets" and "division of business responsibilities" to refuse responses. Core management turmoil, two co-founders leaving Misfortunes never come singly. One month after being investigated for anti-monopoly behaviors, the core management of the company also underwent major changes. At the beginning of the Year of the Horse, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR announced significant personnel changes: the two co-founders, Fan Min and Ji Qi, resigned. In the fourth quarter and full-year results announcement in 2025, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR disclosed that as of February 25, 2026, co-founder Fan Min resigned from the position of director and president, while Ji Qi resigned from the director position. The Board of Directors highly praised the two founders in the statement, recognizing their fundamental and immeasurable contributions to the establishment, growth, and success of the company and expressing gratitude for their long-term dedicated service. At the same time, the company appointed Wu Yihong and Xiao Yang as new independent directors to supplement the board structure. Looking back at the history of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR, in May 1999, Liang Jianzhang, Shen Nanpeng, Fan Min, and Ji Qi jointly founded Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR, known as the "Four Gentlemen of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR" in the industry. Each of the four focused on their expertise: Liang Jianzhang set the direction, Shen Nanpeng managed finances, Ji Qi took care of operations, and Fan Min integrated resources. In August 2005, Shen Nanpeng left Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR and joined Sequoia Capital, serving as a partner in Sequoia Capital China, beginning his investment career. Fan Min and Ji Qi continued their roles in the company. In recent years, Liang Jianzhang, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR, has been more active in public as a population expert. Now, with Fan Min and Ji Qi both leaving, it means that the founding team of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR will only have Liang Jianzhang remaining on the board. Public information shows that the ownership structure of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR is relatively diversified, with the largest shareholder being Baidu Inc. Sponsored ADR Class A group, holding a 7% stake, and Liang Jianzhang ranked as the third largest shareholder with a 5.3% stake. Among the top ten shareholders, there are also several well-known overseas institutions, such as Capital World Investors and BlackRock, Inc., holding 6.2% and 5.3% respectively, making them the second and fourth largest shareholders of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR. The news of the two co-founders leaving overshadowed the bright financial results of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR. The financial report showed that in the fourth quarter of 2025, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR achieved a net operating revenue of 15.398 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.8%; net profit was 4.273 billion yuan, a significant increase of 95%. The annual net operating revenue reached 62.409 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.1%; net profit reached 33.386 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 93.8%. However, the explosive growth in profit for Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR this time was mainly attributed to investment income. The company disclosed that the investment gains included in the other (expenditure) income for the full year of 2025 reached as high as 19.9 billion yuan, while in 2024, this figure was only 1.1 billion yuan. This was mainly due to Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR's announcement in June 2025 of reducing a portion of the B-class common stock held in the Indian online travel platform MakeMyTrip Limited, with the transaction price ranging from $2.5 billion to $3 billion. The transaction was completed in the third quarter, and the company confirmed that other income, including this transaction, reached 17.032 billion yuan. This allowed Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR to achieve a net profit of 19.89 billion yuan in that quarter, a year-on-year growth of 194.01%, with the net profit for the quarter not only exceeding the company's revenue scale but also surpassing Kweichow Moutai for the first time. However, excluding this factor, Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR's main business continued to maintain steady growth. Amidst the anti-monopoly investigation, repeated regulatory summons, core management turmoil, and the departure of two co-founders, the question of whether Liang Jianzhang can continue serving as a "population expert" and the future direction of Trip.com Group Ltd. Sponsored ADR remains uncertain. This article is republished from "Nan Cai She," edited by Xiaoshunlan.