Ctrip-backed MakeMyTrip grows Q2 revenues nearly 14%

Nasdaq-listed online travel company MakeMyTrip recorded a 13.6% year-on-year growth in revenues for its second quarter ended September 30,2019. Revenues stood at $181.07 million against $160.09 million in the corresponding quarter last year.

The company also narrowed its losses during the period to $31.9 million from $39.9 million in the previous corresponding quarter.

According to the earnings report, the company’s adjusted revenues from other sources increased 84% to $11.4 million due to an increase in facilitation fee from travel insurance and an increase in ancillary revenue from alliances and affiliate partnerships.

The company also announced that its credit offerings through bank partners saw bookings worth $50 million a month. MakeMyTrip also expanded its credit offering product, Trip Money, to over 60 locations.

It clocked gross bookings at $1.5 billion during the quarter and revenues for the first six months for financial year 2019-20 stood at $379.6 million with constant currency growth at over 17% from the same period last year.

During the earnings call, director and CEO of MakeMyTrip India Rajesh Magow said that the company continued to invest in alternative accommodations which numbered at 16,500 properties as on date, among 66,500 bookable properties in India overall.

Earlier this year China’s online travel portal Ctrip became the largest shareholder in MakeMyTrip when it acquired Naspers’ shares in the company. The company’s close competitor Yatra was acquired by US headquartered Ebix Inc in July.

MakeMyTrip and hospitality platform OYO have been under scrutiny from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) due to a complaint filed by Federation of Hotel and Restaurants Association of India (FHRAI). The industry body alleged that the players had abused their dominant position in the market to destroy competitive pricing. The watchdog admitted the case prima facie on October 30 and will conclude the investigation in the next 150 days.

Commenting on the allegations during the earnings call, Deep Kalra, group chairman of MakeMyTrip said that the completion of the process will take anywhere between 18 to 24 months.

“We'll, obviously, kind of keep cooperating with CCI or any of the regulators in terms of any inquiries that they kind of want to make. In fact, CCI on its own had initiated a market study almost four months back. So I think there is a concerted effort to kind of get more and more understanding of how the e-commerce market is evolving, and how do we kind of look at it going forward. As part of that, if there is more data or there is more info sharing that is required and we will do that,” said Mhoti Kabra, group chief financial officer at MakeMyTrip during the call.