“We can turn profitable, but that will hit our growth. At this stage of the market, you cannot afford to go slow.”- Deep Kalra
MakeMyTrip.com, India’s leading online travel company was founded in the year 2000 by Deep Kalra. Headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, the company provides online travel services including flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail and bus tickets.
As of March 31, 2018, the Company has 14 company-owned travel stores in 14 cities, including one in their office in Gurugram, over 30 franchisee-owned travel stores which primarily sell packages in approximately 28 cities, and counters in four major airports in India under MakeMyTrip brand. MakeMyTrip also have offices in New York, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Bangkok, and Dubai.
MakeMyTrip - Vision & Mission
MakeMyTrip’s mission is to provide customers a one stop shop for all their travel needs. It aims to give the best possible user experience across their entire travel journey, which includes effective planning resources, superior booking experience across all channels and in journey 24x7 live customer support.
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MakeMyTrip - Founder
Deep Kalra was born in Hyderabad and studied in Delhi and Ahmedabad. He obtained his bachelor's degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1990 and his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1992. Kalra joined ABN AMRO straight out of IIM Ahmedabad where he worked for three years before taking a year long break. He worked with AMF Bowling to set up bowling alleys in India before joining GE Capital in 1999 as VP of Business Development. He was CEO of Makemytrip from its inception till its listing on NASDAQ in August 2010. Since August 2013, he functions as Group CEO. Kalra also serves as the Vice Chairman of Internet and Mobile Association of India. He is one of the founders of Ashoka University, and is a part of its governing body. He is also a founding member of I am Gurgaon, an NGO.
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MakeMyTrip - The Idea
The idea for starting MakeMyTrip erupted while Deep Kalra found himself wondering about the endless possibilities of the internet while trying to sell his wife's car online. While booking a holiday to Thailand, he realized that the internet could offer more competitive prices by cutting out the middleman. Prompted by this thought, Deep founded MakeMyTrip.
MakeMyTrip - Major Challenges Faced
When asked about the biggest challenge faced by MakeMyTrip, Kalra told that, “The meltdown of dotcom, the exit of venture capital from India, and the 9/11 attacks. By mid-2001, MakeMyTrip were hit by this triple whammy. The next couple of years were the toughest — there were no investors in sight and the company had to shrink the team. But those tough times helped bind the team together. It’s been an incredible journey and the team are thrilled for the possibilities that lie ahead.”
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MakeMyTrip - Product and Services
MakeMyTrip’s services include air ticketing, hotel and alternative accommodations bookings, holiday planning and packaging, rail ticketing, intercity bus ticketing, car hire and ancillary travel requirements such as facilitating access to third-party travel insurance and visa processing. The Company’s culture of continuous innovation and “customer first” strategic focus in India’s travel market has allowed them to be the clear leader in the industry and positions them to accelerate the predominately offline hotels and accommodations market online. They have a pretty large team of data scientists. They are using chatbots extensively—Gia for Goibibo and Myra for MakeMyTrip. This covers quite a bit of post sales queries and will also start dabbling in sales.
MakeMyTrip - Growth
MakeMyTrip is focusing on technology and data to make the customer experience more personalised and focused.In the third quarter earnings call, the company said the group reported gross bookings of $3.4 billion and nearly $432 million in net revenue in the first nine months of the fiscal. In the same call, Deep said MakeMyTrip logged over 94 million monthly shopping visits, and over 70 million monthly active users in the third quarter of the fiscal.The NASDAQ listed company, saw net revenues from the hotel business surge by almost 140% to $81.2 million in the first quarter of FY 2017-18.
MakeMyTrip - Revenue Model
MakeMyTrip’s revenues are currently split almost equally between ticketing and tours and hotel bookingsHotels and packages, a higher margin category compared with airline ticketing, is the biggest revenue contributor and account for 56 percent of net revenue. The company is the market leader in domestic flight ticketing with a 24 percent market share.
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MakeMyTrip- Awards and Recognition
The following are the list of accolades received by MakeMyTrip since it’s inception on 2000.
MakeMyTrip - Acquisition and Mergers
MakeMyTrip has made three acquisitions, namely, Luxury Tours and Travel Private Limited (Singapore), ITC Group Hotel Travel Group and ETB Group, over the years, to enter new markets in South – East Asian region and Europe. In September 2014, MakeMyTrip instituted a $15 million innovation fund to support early-stage companies in the travel space. MakeMyTrip acquired MyGola, a travel planning website in April 2015. The acquisition was done through the innovation fund and as part of the acquisition, all employees of MyGola were absorbed into the MakeMyTrip team. In July 2015, MakeMyTrip invested in travel information and hotel review portal, HolidayIQ to pick up approximately 30% stake in the company. In the same month, it also invested $5 million in BonaVita Technologies, a start-up which plans to utilize the funds to build innovative products in the travel industry. In 2016, MakeMyTrip Ltd agreed to buy Ibibo Group’s travel business in India in an all-stock deal, creating the country’s largest online travel firm which, according to a note by Morgan Stanley, is worth $1.8 billion.
MakeMyTrip - Funding
The company raised their first Series A funding of $10 million in 2005. Then they raised another funding of $13 million in 2006. And then again, $15 million in 2007, a Series C funding. However, in 2016, the company launched their IPO. They received $180 million. Later, they launched another IPO in which they raised $330 million. It was in 2017 and the company had no other funding activity since then.
MakeMyTrip - Competitors
Below are the 3 main Makemytrip competitors:
- Oyo
- Yatra
- Cleartrip
MakeMyTrip - Founder’s Advice
“I think we are in a really good space where travel is really booming and most of it is moving online. What's exciting is how do we capture the mind set of this Indian who has moved online recently and who is keen to travel, and we want to be the brand that they trust instinctively and take care of them. And the vision I’ve always had is to get all our customers to become our brand ambassadors. And we keep moving in that direction and it's more important to have people come back to you unaided. And that is what we are excited about,” Kalra shares.
