Indian OTA MakeMyTrip has talked up its performance in the quarter to end-Dec but this hasn't prevented a big drop in its share price.
The figures which seem to matter to the investors - earnings per share and revenues - came in short of expectations. EPS of $0.01 missed by 2c while revenues came in at $35.08 million, (+22.9% Y/Y) misses by $1.29 million short.
The c.$35 million revenues represent a year-on-year increase of 23%, however.
At one point this morning shares were more than 10% down but have settled (at the time of posting) to around 8% off.
But the bigger picture still looks good for MakeMyTrip, with CEO Deep Kalra noting the "improved macro-economic environment in India." The OTA is confident enough to lift its FY guidance, predicting a 30-31% year-on-year increase in revenues to around $137/138 million.
Air did well in the quarter for MakeMyTrip, with an "impressive" lift in domestic market share from 13% last quarter to 15% this time. Kalra said that this improvement was thanks to "internal rather than external factors", namely improvements to MakeMyTrip's mobile capabilities for air bookings - seat selection, itinerary management, single click payment to name but a few.
He noted that MakeMyTrip has "grown share with each and every airline individually. It's not concentrated on a couple of carriers, it's across the board."
The MakeMyTrip app had a blockbuster quarter, with the total number of downloads at end of December coming in a 5.5m - a big leap from the 4.1m at the end of September.
Kalra added that 40% of monthly unique visitors now come to MakeMyTrip via apps or the mobile web, and that 20% of domestic air and 34% of domestic hotels are bought via mobile.
Hotels is another area where MakeMyTrip strengthened in the quarter. "An aggressive sign-up drive" boosted the number of Indian properties which can be booked online to 20,000 at the end of December compared with 15,500 at the end of September.
Elsewhere, its hotels business will benefit from a minority equity investment in Bangalore-based Simplotel Technologies. Simplotel builds responsive and optimized websites as well as booking engines. Kalra said that Simplotel would work with MakeMyTrip to make more hotels bookable online through the OTA.
No financial details are disclosed, although MakeMyTrip will invest some more cash before June, bringing its stake in Simplotel to 25%.
The deal is the first to come out if MakeMyTrip's Incubator Fund, launched in September. At the time, the OTA said it was earmarking some $15 million for start-ups and early-stage businesses. Today we learnt that each investment will be limited to $3 million per company.
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