Yatra Online Inc, which operates travel portal Yatra.com through its India unit, posted a 33.8% jump in net revenue for the quarter ended June but swung to an adjusted operating loss.
Revenue after excluding service costs in the April-June quarter increased to Rs 163.44 crore from Rs 122.16 crore a year earlier, Yatra said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yatra, which last month agreed to acquire corporate travel services provider Air Travel Bureau Ltd, also raised its guidance for growth in revenue less service cost for 2017-18 from 30-35% to 35-40%.
“The combination of Yatra’s existing corporate travel business and ATB’s business makes us the largest corporate travel platform in India by gross bookings,†Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO of Yatra, said.
The company’s revenue from the air ticketing business increased 25.6% from a year earlier to Rs 106.3 crore during the quarter. Revenue less service costs from the hotels and packages business jumped 39% to Rs 43.85 crore.
The online travel services provider posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of Rs 61 crore compared with a profit of Rs 1.3 crore a year earlier. EBITDA is short for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
The losses can be attributed to higher costs. Its marketing and sales promotion expenses soared to Rs 115.3 crore from Rs 33 crore after it hired actor Ranbir Kapoor and launched a marketing campaign. Staff costs almost doubled to Rs 72.5 crore from Rs 37 crore.
Yatra’s revenue including other income rose 15% to Rs 302.93 crore while overall loss widened to Rs 312.6 crore from Rs 8.1 crore.
The company was founded in 2006 by former Ebookers Group (UK) executives Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra. It is backed by a clutch of venture capital, private equity and strategic investors.
In July last year, Yatra had inked a reverse-merger agreement with US-based Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp, paving the way for a back-door listing of the second Indian online travel agency in the US after rival MakeMyTrip.
