Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip is evaluating a potential listing of its India business, a move that could open the company to domestic institutional and retail investors, while strengthening its position in its largest market.
The online travel company said it has completed an internal restructuring to consolidate its key brands operating in India under a single entity, with RedBus India merged into MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited, a regulatory filing Monday said.
The restructuring is seen as a preparatory step that could enable a future India listing, subject to market conditions and regulatory approvals.
“As part of its long‑term growth objectives, the company is evaluating a potential listing of MakeMyTrip India in India, which could provide an additional avenue to access capital, including from domestic institutional and retail investors as well as enable it to provide India‑listed equity as potential consideration for growth initiatives,” the company said in the filing.
An India listing would allow the company to tap local capital markets and potentially use India-listed equity for future acquisitions and growth initiatives, while boosting brand visibility in its core market.
Founded in 2000 by Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip aimed at helping users book international air tickets online. Over the years, the company expanded into a broader online travel platform offering flight, hotel, holiday package, bus and rail bookings. The company is currently led by group chief executive officer Rajesh Magow.
The company said it has served more than 87 million transacted retail customers and over 77,000 SME and large corporate customers. The platform has also sold over 32.5 million hotel room nights under its hotels and packages segment and more than 104.6 million bus tickets.
MakeMyTrip had listed on Nasdaq in 2010 to access a broader investor base that better understood its business model at the time. The stock is currently trading at $46.6 per share.
The development comes as several new age companies including Groww, Meesho, Swiggy and Lenskart have made successful public listings on Indian bourses, minting billions of dollars for their investors. Several companies including Razorpay and PhonePe have also in the past flipped back their domiciles to list in India.
Last year, the company raised $3.1 billion through a mix of equity and debt, according to its banker Morgan Stanley. This came days after MakeMyTrip announced it was raising $3 billion to buy back shares from Trip.com Group, reducing the Chinese company’s holding to 20% from 45%.
India investments
MakeMyTrip has also used acquisitions and investments to expand its presence across travel segments.
Over the years, the company has acquired platforms such as Goibibo and redBus as part of consolidation in India’s online travel market. Recently, it acquired a majority stake in Flamingo Transworld, a group holiday packages operator with a presence across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
The company has also made a minority investment in visa processing platform Atlys and entered into a partnership with the startup to offer visa application services to travellers on its platform.
AI plans
Alongside capital market plans, the company has been increasing investments in artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience across its platform. MakeMyTrip said it is using AI and machine learning across different stages of travel including discovery, booking, trip assistance and post booking support. Recently, the company announced that it will collaborate with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to deepen AI-led travel discovery and capture high intent travel queries.
Its proprietary AI powered trip planning assistant, Myra, handles more than 55,000 daily conversations across multiple languages including Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and English.
Source: Economic Times