OpenTable CEO: "You come to OpenTable because it is the best solution"

“You come to OpenTable because it is the best solution,” said OpenTable OPEN CEO Matthew Roberts during a CNBC interview Tuesday Morning.

Yelp YELP acquired SeatMe last year to directly challenge OpenTable. This morning Yelp announced that restaurants who have claimed their Yelp Pages will be able to take reservations with the for free. This compares to the OpenTable solution which costs $99 per month.

As expected, shares of OpenTable sold off sharply. After falling more than 6.5 percent on the announcement, the company’s CEO took to CNBC to defend the company. Shares are now down just 3.26 percent.

In the interview Roberts emphasised that, “we feel very very confident in our position.” Reasons Roberts cited for this position are the company’s 15 years of experience and series of innovations. For example, OpenTable recently did a limited launch of its new pay by phone feature, which he indicated would be in New York (as long as 19 other markets) by the end of the year.

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Roberts was also questioned about the cost of OpenTable’s service versus Yelp’s. As noted above, there is essentially no cost to use Yelp’s service. Roberts responded by stating that customers only have to pay for OpenTable when the company delivers, and they almost always deliver.

Shares of Yelp (whose market cap is more than double that of OpenTable) were affected very little by the news. Shares are currently up 0.65 percent to $56.97.

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