Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

Please consider a small donation if you think this website provides you with relevant information  

    

Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
Our Bus Ticketing business sustained the growth momentum in Q2 despite a seasonally weak quarter as more and more corporates, especially in the IT sector, are mandating work from office, the traditionally large bus markets in South India are witnessing good recovery
And we are making good progress on that
And all of that would mean effectively that on one side, the customer experience will continuously improve and people will feel more and more comfortable to come and buy online
We believe intercity cabs market could also grow very significantly in view of this significant growth in the highway infrastructure
We are pleased to report another quarter of strong operating performance, where we maintained strong momentum, both in terms of top line and bottom line growth year-on-year
So it's a pretty good opportunity to get into and a meaningful opportunity to get into
The contribution of travel and tourism industry to India's economy is growing steadily, generating substantial revenue and employment opportunities across various sectors, including hospitality, transportation and local businesses
We expect travel and tourism in India to grow faster than the overall GDP during the next decade, which should act as a tailwind for the overall industry
And secondly, our international has been improving
In fact, the year-on-year growth numbers are also robust at about 115%, like about 15% growth rate, achievement is about 115% as compared to pre-pandemic
We believe that there is an opportunity to transform this space with technology and offer a better value proposition, both for our suppliers as well as the customers in the years to come
This investment helped us in strengthening the ForEx offerings for our customers, who book overseas travel services with us and opened up another growth opportunity for us
Our strong balance sheet with over $0.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents gives us the flexibility to pursue both organic and inorganic opportunities of driving supply or distribution side expansion
We continue to stay excited about future opportunities and aim to further consolidate our position as a leading travel services company in the country on the back of our innovative travel solutions, brand strength and ability to deliver superior value to our customers and our partners
On top of that, almost 70% of the orders coming from our existing customers, helping us drive further cost efficiencies
As for business segments now, starting with the air business, while domestic air ticketing had recovered a few quarters back and continues to grow well, this quarter, our international air ticketing business surpassed the pre-pandemic levels for the first time, which is encouraging
Adjusted margin stood at $21.8 million, registering a strong year-on-year growth of about 34% in constant currency terms
Gross bookings for the quarter for hotels and packages segment stood at about $432 million, witnessing a strong growth of 34.5% on a year-on-year basis in constant currency terms
Aided by strong operating leverage, the adjusted operating profit grew by over 87% year-on-year from $15.1 million in same quarter last year to about $28.2 million in this quarter translating to an increase of about $13.1 million in absolute terms
Demand for travel remained robust on the back of positive consumer sentiment, helping us deliver gross bookings to the tune of $1.8 billion during the second quarter of fiscal year '23, '24, witnessing a year-on-year growth of 23.8% in constant currency norms
Our accommodation business, which includes hotels, homestays and packages, witnessed strong year-on-year growth on the back of increased supply, improved discovery and deeper penetration beyond metros and Tier 1 and Tier 2 towns
We have delivered robust operating performance this quarter, with a strong year-on-year growth in gross bookings, revenue and adjusted operating profit in line with our stated strategy of profitable growth
We now have 77,000 plus properties listed on our platform, covering 2,075 cities across India, further strengthening our supply moat
And for Q2T, active customer count has reached 297 with strong additions every quarter
MyPartner, which is our B2B2C platform for small travel agents, now has 40,000 plus travel agents and expanding every quarter with a very healthy repeat transaction rate
International room nights growth picked up strongly this quarter as well, while the domestic accommodation business continued to perform well
For all our product offerings, our direct B2C platform continues to be the leader in India in terms of active users, number of transactions and reach, while our new channels are also gaining traction
Currently, intercity cabs is a highly unorganized and fragmented market and with road infrastructure improving in the country, it presents a good future growth opportunity
This feature has further improved the user experience in the property selection process
We are making good progress on our journey with generative AI-powered features on our platform
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
But there is also a risk about the Pratt & Whitney Indigo engines continue to create a bit of an issue going into next year
This is a segment with low online penetration, fragmented supply and lack of standardization in experience
And like we've been explaining, this is a segment which has seen a significant amount of pricing reset and, therefore, is kind of the recovery is slightly lower than all the other price points
Sachin Salgaonkar Rajesh, in your opening remarks, you also commented about a bit of an issue on demand, especially given the harsh monsoon
Ashwin Mehta And the second question was in terms of fees, we saw sequentially a reduction in terms of hotel and bus ticketing transactions
Just from a day-to-day operations standpoint, we have only seen in the last -- especially in the last few weeks or a couple of months that the immediate -- the situation in terms of pressure on the cash flow, in terms of a couple of payments that they were supposed to be made, they were supposed to be doing basis the court orders and stuff like that
And I would like to understand if you have a -- if the reason why you believe these marketing costs can stay at these lower levels is because you can see the budget hotel segment completely recovering, and this is a new normal there as well
And from a long-term outlook standpoint, to be honest, I don't really see an issue because, ultimately, all these problems are going to get resolved one way or the other
And dependence is already low
I won't say it is -- we have seen anything dramatically unusual, Gaurav, to be honest, only for certain pockets for certain dates for certain cities, thanks to this whole World Cup thing because of the sort of worry or concern around fares going up, et cetera
But it looks like -- I mean, Q-o-Q DGCA data shows 2%, 3% decline, right, and your numbers are up
But on an overall basis, nothing unusual
Second question, just on this entire capacity issues at airlines, again, one is a near-term perspective, which you guys said
It has nothing to do with now demand not coming back
Any general comments on early December bookings? Are we still seeing issues associated with demand or that started to reverse off? Rajesh Magow So Sachin, July, August, September, that specific monsoon-related issue was temporary and was confined to certain cities of the country, not necessarily across
In fact, now we are pretty much back to pre-COVID kind of mix coming in from the international side, like we have been mentioning the recovery on international had been slower, but now pretty much kind of back to full recovery and the domestic versus international mix is pretty much restored now
   

Please consider a small donation if you think this website provides you with relevant information