MakeMyTrip Q2 net revenue rises 37.5%, ups guidance for FY15; losses shrink

NASDAQ-listed online travel services firm MakeMyTrip (MMT) reported a 37.5 per cent (34.8 per cent in constant currency) rise in revenues less service costs or net revenues to $32 million for the second quarter ended September 30, 2014 over the year-ago period.

Overall revenues rose 27.7 per cent (25.4 per cent in constant currency) to $60.5 million in the quarter while the gross bookings, which represent the total amount paid by a customer while booking on its platform, rose 44.1 per cent to $392.6 million.

Of the total net revenue, about 39.5 per cent was contributed by hotels and packages. The net revenue in this category increased by 76.8 per cent to $12.5 million in the quarter ended September 30, 2014 from $7.1 million in the same period last year. This was due to an increase in gross bookings of 83.9 per cent and a 70.9 per cent increase in the number of transactions year over year, driven by improved customer experience and range of offering for our domestic customers and also growth in international bookings aided by the acquisition of Easytobook Group in February 2014.

The net revenue in from air ticketing category increased by 19.6 per cent to $18.2 million in the quarter ended September 30, 2014 from the same period last year. This was primarily due to an increase in gross bookings of 34 per cent. The transaction growth in the fiscal second quarter of fiscal year 2015 was largely driven by special fares offered by Indian domestic carriers.

Operating loss fell from $5.88 million to $3.28 million.

Net loss was $4.8 million as against loss of $7.5 million in Q2 FY14 while adjusted net loss declined to $1.6 million as against $2.9 million in the year-ago period.

On the flip side the firm's net margins from both airticketing and hotels & packages business has declined during the period. For airticketing it fell from 7 per cent to 6.2 per cent while that for hotels & packages it has declined from 12.9 pref cent to 12.4 per cent. Overall blended margins has shrunk from 8.2 per cent to 7.8 per cent.

"In this quarter, MakeMyTrip continued to execute towards our long term strategy of hotels and holidays packages growth," said Deep Kalra, chairman and group CEO. "Our ongoing commitment and investments made helped us to achieve high growth rates during the seasonally slow travel quarter and to keep providing MakeMyTrip's customers the best in class booking experience."

Citing fiscal year 2014-15 outlook, the company said that the results achieved in the fiscal first half including improving domestic travel market, increases its confidence.

It has revised the range of fiscal year 2015 annual revenue less service cost guidance with a growth of 28-30 per cent, which is in the range of $136 million to $138 million, the company said in a statement. Previously the firm had given net revenue guidance of $133 million to $136 million with growth range of 25-28 per cent.