Online Travel Company Yatra Revenue Jumps 36%, Loss Fall To $5.57 Mn

Showcasing strong growth for both its primary businesses — air ticketing and hotels and packages, online travel company Yatra has posted results for the three months ended March 31, 2018.

Yatra reported a loss of $5.57 Mn (INR 38.09 Cr), an admissible success in comparison to $12.16 Mn (INR 83.02 Cr) on Q-o-Q basis. At the same time, the revenue jumped by over 36% to $48.13 Mn (INR 328.57 Cr), compared to corresponding quarter of last fiscal year.

In a statement, Dhruv Shringi, Co-founder and CEO, Yatra, said, “During the past quarter as well, we continued to deliver strong growth with air ticketing transactions up 38% and standalone hotel room nights booked up 54%. We believe that our unique approach of combining business travel and consumer travel in an emerging growth market like India positions us well to capitalise on the fast-growing travel industry in India.”

He further emphasised that the acquisition of ATB earlier during the year, enabled the company to consolidate its position in the large business travel segment in India and become the leading player in the segment and “the brand refresh campaigns that we had undertaken during the past year have enabled us to drive significant organic growth as well.”

Some of the other highlights of Yatra’s quarterly results are:

• Revenue from the company’s air ticketing business increased by more than 35% to $20.2 Mn (INR 137.91 Cr)
• Revenue from hotels and packages business was $25.62 Mn (INR 174.93 Cr), up almost 40%, for the fourth quarter
• Personnel expenses for the quarter dropped by almost 21% to $10.88 Mn (INR 74.28 Cr)
• Marketing and sales promotion expenses as a percentage of revenue less service cost, came in lower, at 56.2% in the current quarter versus 66.1% during the year-ago corresponding quarter
• Gross Air Passengers Booked were 2.5 Mn representing Y-o-Y growth of 38.2%.

At the same time, for the fiscal year 2017, Yatra posted a revenue of $179.44 Mn (INR 1224.85 Cr), a 30% Y-o-Y increase, with 8.9 Mn gross air passengers booked. The profit for the period was $59.36 Mn (INR 405.2 Cr), while adjusted EBITDA Loss was of $27.98 Mn (INR 191 Cr).

These results come shortly after Yatra expressed its intention to raise $100 Mn capital in the next three years, in the recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Yatra: The Journey

Founded in August 2006 by Sabina Chopra, Manish Amin and Dhruv Shringi, Yatra provides a full range of travel-related services such as domestic and international air ticketing, hotel booking, homestays, holiday packages, bus ticketing, rail ticketing, activities, attractions and ancillary services.

The Gurugram-based company claims to have tie-ups with 70K hotels in India and nearly 800K hotels across the globe. It is backed by IDG Ventures, Vertex Venture Management, Norwest Venture Partners and other investors.

The company last raised $15.4 Mn as venture debt from InnoVen Capital in September 2017.

Despite rising losses, Yatra has made a string of acquisitions geared towards growth and expansion. These include Travelguru, Travel-Logs, WhatsApp-based concierge app Dudegenie and Bengaluru-based auto rickshaw aggregator MGaadi. In July 2016, Yatra signed a reverse merger agreement with NASDAQ-listed firm Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp(TRTL).

Following the move, Yatra started trading on NASDAQ, a global electronic marketplace for buying and selling securities. In October 2016, it also offered Reliance Industries a small equity stake in the company.

In 2017, Yatra acquired corporate travel service provider Air Travel Bureau (ATB) for an undisclosed amount.

Indian Online Travel Market

In the online travel segment, Yatra competes with the players like MakeMyTrip, ixigo, and Paytm among others.

Recently, Paytm recorded a growth of 3x compared to FY17, with the sale of 38 Mn travel tickets on its platform in FY18.

Prior to this, MakeMyTrip posted its results for the year ending December 2017 and recorded an overall revenue of $172.5 Mn, up 36% YoY from $123.2 Mn in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year.

Due to increased expenses following MakeMyTrip’s merger with Ibibo Group, the Gurugram-headquartered online travel aggregator witnessed a jump in losses to $45.3 Mn in Q3 of FY18.

The country’s travel market (both offline and online) is expected to touch $48 Bn by 2020, according to a Google India-BCG report.

According to an IBEF report, the online travel space will likely account for 40% to 50% of total transactions with 2020.

With strong growth showcased in its financial results and commitment of $100 Mn for next three years, Yatra looks like a promising prospect in Indian online travel market.