Delhi-based travel portal EaseMyTrip, which is expanding its global footprint, expects one-fourth of its overall revenue to come from overseas business by 2026-27, says EaseMyTrip co-founder Prashant Pitti. The travel booking platform, currently, generates around 6% of its revenue from Middle-East business, largely from Dubai operations.
“We believe this number could look like 75:25 in the next couple of years. Around 75% of revenue will come from India, and the remaining 25% from outside India by serving non-Indian people,” says Prashant Pitti in an exclusive interaction with Fortune India.
“A couple of years ago, we started our Middle East operations. Last quarter, the company generated ₹126 crore worth of business from this region, which is quite substantial since we only started two years ago,” he adds.
In the April-June quarter of FY25, EaseMyTrip achieved a substantial 139% year-on-year increase in revenue from its Dubai operations. The gross booking revenue (GBR) from this region rose to ₹126.71 crore from ₹52.98 crore in Q1 FY24. This constitutes 5.6% of the company’s total GBR of ₹2,274.47 crore.
Sharing details about the overseas business expansion plans, Pitti says EaseMyTrip has already started operations in the United Kingdom. “We have a huge cost arbitrage when compared to companies which are based out of the Middle East or Europe or the United States. Since we offer digital goods such as flight and train tickets, hotel, and holiday packages, which can be sent via WhatsApp or email, EaseMyTrip could be one of those front running companies which can serve the entire world while sitting in India.”
EaseMyTrip, which recently acquired a 4.94% stake in ETrav Tech, is also looking for acquisitions in non-air space. Confirming this, Pitti says, “Yes, there are a few acquisitions which are planned. Most of them are in non-air space.”
The online travel company recently forayed into the hospitality space with a plan to set up a hotel in Ayodhya, and ventured into the insurance sector with the launch of its subsidiary EaseMyTrip Insurance Broker Pvt Ltd in January this year. On business diversification, EaseMyTrip co-founder says, “We have a customer base of 26 million people and whatever they buy online as a digital good that can be served to them easily, we might be interested in taking care of them. But, we don't want to enter into logistics business.”
For the first quarter ended June 30, 2024, EaseMyTrip posted a 31% growth in its consolidated profit after tax to ₹33.93 crore as compared to ₹25.90 crore in the same quarter of last fiscal. The total income rose to ₹156.22 crore in Q1 FY25, from ₹126.64 crore a year ago, as per the earnings report filed by the company on August 13. On the operating front, EBITDA was ₹50.59 crore, up 34.9% YoY. The improvement in profitability was attributed to strong rise in revenue from hotels and holiday packages and stellar performance of Dubai operations.
Gross booking revenue from hotels and holiday packages increased by 116.6% year-over-year to ₹210.7 crore in the June quarter of FY25, while revenue from its Dubai operations jumped by 139% YoY.
“EaseMyTrip sustained its bottom-line growth during the relevant period, continuing with steady operational momentum along with continued focus on profitability,” says Nishant Pitti, co-founder and CEO of EaseMyTrip, on Q1 performance.
During the quarter under review, EaseMyTrip also expanded its footprint through its offline franchise store model and opened new stores in Karnal, Amritsar, and Bhopal. These additions bring the total number of franchise stores to 16, with a strategic goal of reaching 100 stores by the end of the year, it says in the earnings release.
On Wednesday, EaseMyTrip shares dropped as much as 2% before settling at ₹39.09, down 1.51%, with a market capitalisation of ₹6,926.91 crore on the BSE.
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