Pandemic travel restrictions drag down MakeMyTrip Q2 revenue

Online travel company MakeMyTrip on Tuesday announced its unaudited interim financial results for the second quarter ended September 30 for the fiscal 2021. Revenue for the quarter stood at $21.1 million, up by 18.9% from the previous quarter revenue of $6.4 million. However, this is a significant drop of nearly 82.2% as compared to Q2FY20, which generated $118 million in revenue.

The low revenue figures are an outcome of the continued impact of the pandemic restrictions, which includes lower travel demand, the company said. Air ticketing revenue saw a drop of 90.6%, hotels and packages revenue was down by 81.4% and the bus ticketing numbers were down 71.3%, against Q2FY20 numbers.

However, losses from operating costs have improved as compared to Q2 ended September 30, 2019. In Q2FY21, the loss stood at $26.1 million, down from $31.9 million in Q2FY20. Adjusted operating loss was $12.9 million in Q2FY21 versus a loss of $19.3 million in Q2FY20, reflecting an improvement of $6.4 million YoY. Adjusted operating loss was also lower by $8.4 million versus Q1FY21. 

“Since nationwide government-imposed lockdown orders had been slowly lifted in late May, we had seen a gradual recovery in travel demand, with sequential month on month improvements across all our lines of business. As the domestic travel industry and our business gradually continues on the path of recovery, our focus remains on balancing cost controls and investments to aid in business recovery and continue on minimizing operating losses,” the company said in a statement.

As travel restrictions ease across the world, MakeMyTrip hopes to see recovery in operations. 

“We are well poised operationally and financially, with ongoing product and technology innovations to offer superior customer experience as we recover from the severe travel demand disruption caused by COVID-19 in the coming quarters,” Deep Kalra, group executive chairman said. 

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In August this year, the company launched its B2B2C platform Called myPartner, which digitises offline travel agents enabling them to manage operational processes and customer services through the platform. In the same month, it had also announced securing a $100-million credit as a backup source of liquidity for contingencies and potential investments.