Yatra Online, Inc. (YTRA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to Yatra's Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Call for the period ended September 30 of 2025. I'm pleased to be joined on the call today by Yatra's CEO and co-founder Dhruv Stringhi and CFO Anuj Sethi. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, reflects management's views as of today, November 12th, 2025. We don't take any obligation to update or revise the information. Before we begin our formal remarks, let me remind you that certain statements made on today's call may constitute forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For a description of these risks, please refer to our filings with the SEC and our press release filed earlier this morning on the IR section of our website. With that, let me turn the call over to Dhruv. Dhruv, please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us on this conference call to discuss our second quarter and first half of fiscal year 2026 earnings. Let me start by briefing you first on the operational performance for the period under review, after which our CFO, Ms. Ahmed Sethi, will brief you on the financial performance in detail. As you would have seen from our results and presentations that have been uploaded, it has been a remarkable quarter for Yatra, as we have not only delivered strong financial and operational performance well ahead of guidance, but also celebrated 19 incredible years as one of India's most trusted travel banks. For second quarter of fiscal year 26, our revenue grew 48.5% year-over-year to INR 3,508 million, which is approximately $39.5 million. Adjusted revenue grew significantly year-over-year as well. Our growth in the quarter was fueled by resilient demand and consistent execution across both our corporate and consumer platforms. This also reflects the momentum we have gained in our corporate business and the higher margin hotels and packages business, as well as continued momentum in the market segment. Notably, our profitability metrics underscores our disciplined execution. Adjusted EBITDA surged 218% year over year to INRs, 212 million or USD 2.4 million, And profit for the period increased significantly to INR's $98.8 million or USD $1.1 million versus the loss of INR's $0.3 million or USD $0.1 million in the prior year when ahead of our earlier guidance. The corporate travel market is expected to reach around US$20 billion by FY27. However, online penetration in this segment remains low at just about 20% in FY24 compared to almost 45% for the overall travel market in India. This indicates substantial high room for digital adoption across the corporate travel industry. Online penetration is accelerating, driven by rapid adoption of digital booking platforms and the uptake of self-booking tools and integrated expense management solutions. In the lodging space, banded hotels and curated packages are witnessing increasing demand from both leisure and nice travelers, supported by improving supply, better service standards, and a growing preference for experiential stays. Overall, this large and expanding market, coupled with increasing ditching penetration, presents a significant opportunity for Yatra, particularly in the underpenetrated corporate segment. Our corporate travel segment represents a meaningful part of our overall business and delivers strong momentum for Yatsur. In Q2, we onboarded 34 new corporate clients collectively adding an annual bidding potential of INR 2.6 billion or USD 29.5 million. on the b2c front we continue to make good progress in rationalizing our cost of acquisition and finding avenues to scale profitably bookings which were impacted in the previous quarter due to macro events have now started to show signs of recovery additionally the recent reduction in income tax and gst rates in india is expected to further boost travel consumption and discretionary spending supporting a stronger growth outlook in the quarters ahead on the technology front we continue to enhance our digital platforms to deliver a more seamless and intelligent travel experience our di ai our generative ai powered travel assistance now enables seamless flight and hotel search bookings streamlining the entire travel journey from planning to payment we have also introduced a new user interface design for hotels with a transparent per room per night pricing model along with upfront display of taxes and fees to eliminate surprises for users the optimized interface is designed to improve usability and drive higher conversion rates additionally our best price guarantees customers can be assured to access the lowest available hotel rates on the up shop if they find a lower price as elsewhere we match it or offer a better rate for the same booking in sales and marketing we celebrated our 19th year with the big outing press a high impact sales campaign that was amplified across digital social crop outdoor and paint platforms as part of our broader brand building efforts we also strengthened our corporate travel presence on linkedin driving greater visibility and engagement among enterprise customers. As part of our ongoing efforts around restructuring, the company believes it has a viable structure to pursue. While some hurdles remain, we are actively navigating processes across during sections. The timeline is uncertain due to complexity, but we are fully committed. This transition is key for Yatra and its shareholders, aligning us with the market and unlocking value. We'll share more updates as we move forward. As we look ahead, we see strong sustained growth opportunities driven by rising digital adoption across both leisure and corporate travel segments. Yatra is well positioned to capture this growth through our expanded corporate client base, enhanced technology offerings, and a growing share of high margin hotels and mice businesses. We remain committed to discipline cost management, profitable scaling, and delivering long-term value to our shareholders, while sensing our competitive edge in the global travel ecosystem. Thank you everyone and I'll now request our CFO Anad Sethi to brief you on the financial performance of the quarter under review.

Thank you Dhruv. Good morning everyone. For the second quarter of financial year 2026, on a consolidated basis, our revenue from operations grew 48.5% year on year to INR 3508.7 million or equivalent to USD 39.5 million driven by continued momentum across key segments including robust growth in our hotels and packages business and a meaningful contribution from my segment our adjusted margins performed strongly across segments air ticketing adjusted margin increased 14.7 percent year-on-year to INR 1016 million equivalent to USD 11.4 million hotels and packages adjusted margin rose 28.6 percent year on year to INR 514.5 million or USD 5.8 million and other services adjusted margin grew 25.1% year on year to INR 95 million or USD 1.1 million underscoring the strength of our diversified business model. Adjusted EBITDA surged 217.7% year on year to INR 212 million or USD 2.4 million. As a result, profit after tax increased significantly to INR 98.8 million or USD 1.1 million versus a loss of INR 0.3 million or USD 0.1 million in the prior year. In terms of segment performance, our ticketing passenger volumes declined 3.5% year-on-year to 1329,000. However, our gross air bookings grew 11.7% year-on-year to INR 14811.4 million or USD 166.8 million. INR adjusted margins rose 14.7% year-on-year to 1016 million or USD 11.4 million with adjusted margin percentage improving from 6.7% to 6.9%. In the hotels and packages segment, the hotel room nights grew by 9.4% year-on-year to 504,000. Gross cookings increased 40.4% year-on-year to INR 5141.6 million or USD 57.9 million, while the adjusted margins expanded to 28.6% year-on-year to INR 514.5 million or USD 5.8 million, with the adjusted margin percentage at 10 compared to 10.9 percent in the previous year total gross bookings across all segments increased 16.2 percent year-on-year to INR 20504.8 million or USD 231.0 million on the liquidity front cash and cash equivalents and term deposits stood at 2207.8 million or

USD 24.9 million as of September 30th 2025 with this i would like to hand it back to moderator and open the floor for the question and answer session thank you thank you we will now begin the question and answer session and if you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now if you change your mind please press star followed by two and as a reminder that is star followed by one to register for any questions we have the first question on the phone lines from Scott Buck with HC Wainwright & Co please go ahead hi Hi.

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I was hoping you might be able to provide a little bit more color around corporate travel trends that you're seeing in the India market. And maybe how much of your momentum there is driven by just kind of industry tailwinds versus your market share gains?

Good morning, Scott. Scott, to answer your question, I think today the corporate travel market in india is growing approximately at about uh eight to nine percent uh we are growing almost at like 2x of that rate uh the reason we are growing that much faster than the industry is because what we've seen over the last few years now last couple of years at least is that there is an increasing drive on the part of corporates in india to adopt digital technology to automate their business processes and as part of that being the market leader in this segment our teams along with their own you know execution capabilities are growing at a rate which is faster than the market so market itself is growing right but within the market as well given the technology solution that we offer we are able to gain market share as well great i I appreciate the added color there.

And Drew, I'm curious, how are you guys thinking about M&A and the potential to accelerate the MICE business even more through acquisition? Is that on the table?

So, you know, we continue to evaluate opportunities, Scott. At this point of time, I think it's hard for me to give any more direct color on that. But just as an organization, if you look at the track record that we've had over the last few years, We've successfully made some acquisitions that we've been able to integrate within the Yatra platform. So we continue to evaluate these kinds of opportunities.

Perfect. And then last one, I know you touched on it in the prepared remarks, but the restructuring efforts, can you give us a little more color on maybe where you are? Are you waiting for regulators at this point, or are there more steps that you need to complete on your end?

I think there are a few more steps that we need to complete at our end, but, you know, along with MDs, given the nature of this work in tandem with the regulators as well, we are hoping that in the near term we can give some more concrete information, right? and you know given that there are multiple jurisdictions multiple regulators involved in the process uh the timeline is a is slightly uncertain but we are so confident that we are moving in the right direction with this okay perfect i i appreciate the added color guys and congrats on all the progress thank you thank you if you would like to ask any further questions

please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now star followed by one to register for a question i can confirm that does conclude the question and answer session here and i'd like to hand it back to jav to force and final close oh i apologize we do have a question on the line from amin jane with pmb securities please go ahead when you're ready hello hi please

go ahead.

I just wanted to check specifically on the consumer business. How profitable is it with our corporate travel business and how do you see it trending? I understand in the last quarter or probably in Q4, you guided that we should be working out around Q1, Q2 in the consumer business and then we should start picking it up. How is it trending now, the consumer business? and what percentage of your overall business is the consumer now going to do it now?

So the consumer, let me just work backwards, the consumer business now is accounting for about a third of our overall gross bookings. And in terms of the trending of the consumer business, the consumer business has definitely bottomed out and we've seen profitability improve over there. we would expect you know a gradual kind of increase in the consumer business as well while we would expect the corporate business to grow you know between 13 to 20 percent we would expect the consumer business to grow in the mid to high single digits and this growth that you're looking at in the consumer business is all profitable growth only we are not looking at doing any negative cost of acquisition so whatever growth set we are projecting out here on the consumer

business that is all going to be incremental and accreted from a bottom line point of view well very good uh next is uh you just on the on the call on the previous question uh you mentioned towards your effort towards uh streamlining the corporate structure uh you said you are doing some some some approvals can you just throw some more light exactly where we are and how do you see it progressing by when do we see to be completed it's hard to give an exact timeline on that but it remains a key priority for us as an organization as you might be aware if we have you know our

corporate structure entails entities in cayman island cyprus and singapore so it is a multi jurisdiction transaction that has to go through so to that extent there are multiple regulators that you get involved in this process. That's the reason why it's difficult to give an exact timeline on this. But I think from a commitment point of view, the organization is fully committed to this.

Should we expect it to be completed in another year's time or it could be longer?

As I said, it's hard for me to give a timeline to this, but if I was to give it my best estimate, I don't think it should take as long as a year. And that's my best estimate of it, but it's all obviously subject to regulatory approvals across the different jurisdictions.

And how are you planning it? Will it involve delisting of the U.S. company, merger with the Indian company, merger with the Aqra Online? How exactly are you envisaging it currently?

I think it'll be a bit premature to talk about that at this stage.

When we have the exact plan, which is signed off by all regulatory elements we will publish that out for shareholders i think it'll be difficult for me to really articulate that at this point all right um okay but um but so my key takeaway is it should take less than a year but that is a better estimate uh there is no comment from your side all right yeah that's it thank you thanks that's that was my question thank you thank you thank you one final reminder that is staff followed by one to register for any questions and we have a follow-up question from arman please go ahead i i will take my i will take my liberty here uh as you are aware the other listed uh indian uh ota uh in us is mnd and the valuation gap is quite considerable to M&T versus what we trade at. Any plans on how can we fix it?

See, I think in terms of the U.S. entity, the holding company today, as you rightly pointed out, trades at a meaningful discount to peers. Part of it is also driven by the much smaller market cap and the lack of liquidity. one of the ways that we are trying to solve or rather the key way that we are trying to solve for is to introduce some kind of a fungibility because in india the entity is trading at a much better multiple than where it's trading in the u.s so that's the entire reason for taking on this exercise of trying to streamline the copy structure and put in place some kind of a fungibility to the shares that's definitely one way that we're looking at doing it and in india we've been you know, based on the strong performance that we have, interacting with analysts, large amount of investor community, and that's what's driving the momentum behind the stock in India.

Okay, just for my clarity, what exactly do you mean by fungibility?

By fungibility, I mean the ability of a U.S. shareholder at some point to get the same price or similar price to what exists in India. Okay, so does that mean getting the Indian share? as i said uh to you earlier as 11 that's something that once the plan is concrete approved and adopted by the board we will share that out transparency with all shareholders awesome thank you thank you thanks a lot thank you i can confirm that does conclude the question and answer session here i'd like to hand it back to you for some final closing comments thank you moderator i'd like to thank all of you for joining the call today If you have any further questions, please reach out to our AYA partners ICR. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call with Yarcher.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your participation. You may not disconnect and please enjoy the rest of your day.