EaseMyTrip’s Market Cap Touches $1 Bn Post Expansion Announcement

As the world slowly opens after several waves of the pandemic and international travel eases up, Delhi-based traveltech EaseMyTrip, which was publicly listed in March this year, hit a market capitalisation of $1 Bn on Friday (September 17) as its share price touched a 52-week high of INR 717.65, taking its market capitalisation to a little over INR 7400 Cr ( $1 Bn).

EaseMyTrip entered the coveted billion-dollar (unicorn) club soon after it announced its international foray into the US, the Philippines and Thailand markets, citing huge pent-up global travel demand in the coming months. The company will launch a localised travel search engine in each global subsidiary to enable the customers in the region to use its services.

Investor Dr Ritesh Malik, also the founder of Innov8 (now acquired by OYO rooms), took to Twitter to congratulate the EaseMyTrip team. Aloke Bajpai, the founder of rival travel tech startup ixigo, congratulated EaseMyTrip on achieving this benchmark. He said: “Bootstrapped to IPO Unicorn! We need more such stories.”

ixigo, too, plans to hit the public markets this year and has filed preliminary papers for its INR 1,600 Cr IPO.

Founded in 2008 by Nishant Pitti, Rikant Pitti and Prashant Pitti, EaseMyTrip allows its customers to book air, rail and bus tickets and hotel and holiday packages, besides other travel services. In the Indian market, EaseMyTrip, which was bootstrapped until its public listing, competes with Yatra, MakeMyTrip, ixigo and Cleartrip, among others.

In March, EaseMyTrip’s parent company Easy Trip Planners, with an INR 510 Cr IPO, got listed at a share price of INR 212.25 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), a 13.5% premium over its issue price of INR 187. On the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the shares were listed at INR 206, at a premium of 10.16% over the issue price. Today, the price is nearly double with the day’s low at INR 638.

Among the major online travel agencies (OTAs) in India, Easy Trip Planners is one of the profitable ones in terms of net profit margin. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 (FY20), Easy Trip’s profit stood at INR 33 Cr.

In its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP), the company wrote that due to the Covid-19 pandemic last year, its business and operations were adversely affected. With travel restrictions opening up, the company nearly doubled its net profit to INR 61.4 crore in the FY21.

Update | September 20, 2021

Updated ‘Easy Trip Planners is the only profitable one’ to ‘EaseMyTrip is one of the profitable’

Update Note | June 4, 2022, 8:40 AM

The story has been updated to include the name of the third cofounder of EaseMyTrip.

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