Earnings call transcript: Yatra Online Q1 2025 sees stock surge despite EPS miss

Yatra Online Inc. reported its Q1 2025 earnings, revealing a mixed financial performance that saw the company’s revenue exceed forecasts, while its earnings per share (EPS) fell short. The company’s revenue for the quarter was $24.47 million, surpassing expectations by 32.27%. However, the EPS came in at $0.01, missing the forecast of $0.03 by 66.67%. Despite the EPS miss, the market reacted positively, with the stock price surging 25.56% in after-hours trading, rising from $0.90 to $1.13. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock currently trades above its Fair Value, with momentum indicators suggesting overbought conditions.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue exceeded forecasts by 32.27%, reaching $24.47 million.
• EPS of $0.01 missed the forecast by 66.67%.
• Stock price surged 25.56% in after-hours trading.
• Strong growth in the corporate travel segment.
• Significant reduction in gross debt.

Company Performance

Yatra Online demonstrated strong revenue growth in Q1 2025, reporting a 99.7% increase year-over-year. The company attributed its performance to robust demand in the corporate travel sector, despite travel disruptions in India. The company also improved its profitability metrics, turning a profit of $1.3 million compared to a loss in the same quarter last year. The adjusted EBITDA rose by 214% year-over-year, reflecting enhanced operational efficiency and cost management. InvestingPro data reveals the company maintains a strong financial health score of 3.01 (rated as "GREAT"), with a current ratio of 1.99 indicating solid liquidity. Discover 15+ additional exclusive insights about Yatra’s financial health with an InvestingPro subscription.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $24.47 million, up 99.7% year-over-year
• Earnings per share: $0.01, compared to a forecast of $0.03
• Gross margin: $13.5 million, up 36.6% year-over-year
• Profit: $1.3 million, compared to a loss in the previous year
• Adjusted EBITDA: $2.4 million, up 214% year-over-year

Earnings vs. Forecast

Yatra’s revenue of $24.47 million was a significant surprise, exceeding forecasts by 32.27%. However, the EPS of $0.01 fell short of the expected $0.03, marking a 66.67% miss. This discrepancy highlights a focus on revenue growth, possibly at the expense of short-term profitability.

Market Reaction

Despite the EPS miss, Yatra’s stock experienced a notable increase of 25.56% in after-hours trading, indicating strong investor confidence in the company’s revenue growth and future prospects. The stock price rose from $0.90 to $1.13, showcasing positive sentiment despite the earnings miss. InvestingPro data highlights impressive momentum, with the stock delivering returns of 13.15% in the past week and 40.59% over six months. The company’s beta of 1.05 suggests slightly higher volatility than the broader market.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Yatra is focusing on digital adoption and disciplined cost management to drive profitable scaling. The company is also exploring potential mergers and acquisitions in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) segment. Revenue forecasts for FY2026 and FY2027 are set at $104.74 million and $112.59 million, respectively, with EPS projections of $0.03 and $0.06. Access comprehensive analysis and detailed growth projections through the exclusive Pro Research Report, available to InvestingPro subscribers, covering Yatra and 1,400+ other top stocks.

Executive Commentary

CEO Dhruv Shringi stated, "Our growth in revenue and gross margins reflects the momentum we have in our corporate business." He also emphasized the accelerating online penetration driven by digital platform adoption and reaffirmed the company’s commitment to "disciplined cost management, profitable scaling, and delivering long-term value to our shareholders."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential travel disruptions in India could impact future performance.
• The company faces competition in the rapidly growing digital booking platform market.
• Macroeconomic pressures may affect consumer and corporate travel spending.
• Execution risks associated with potential M&A activities in the MICE segment.
• Currency fluctuations could impact financial results due to international operations.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential for mergers and acquisitions in the MICE segment, seeking clarity on how such moves could enhance Yatra’s market position. Questions also focused on the impact of macroeconomic events on consumer travel and the ongoing share restructuring process. CEO Dhruv Shringi highlighted the company’s strong performance in both corporate and consumer segments, reinforcing confidence in Yatra’s strategic direction.

Full transcript - Yatra Online Inc (YTRA) Q1 2026:

Moderator/Operator: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Yatra’s Fiscal First Quarter twenty twenty six Financial Results Call. For the period ended 06/30/2025, today’s call is hosted by Yatra’s CEO and Co Founder, Dhruv Shringi and CFO, Anu Sefi. The following discussion includes responses to your questions, reflects the management’s views as of today, 08/11/2025, the company does not take any obligation to update or revise the information. Before they begin their formal remarks, please be reminded that certain statements made on this call may constitute forward looking statements, which are based on Yatra’s management, current expectations and beliefs are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For a description of these risks, please refer to Yatra’s filings with the SEC and their press release filed earlier this morning on the IR section of Yatra’s website.

With that, let me turn the call over to Yatra’s CEO and Co Founder, Dhruv Srangi. Dhruv, please go ahead.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter fiscal year twenty twenty six earnings. I’m pleased to share that our first quarter performance delivered strong financial and operational results with growth well ahead of our annual guidance despite the disruption in travel in India on account of the cross border tension and the unfortunate air crash in June 2025. This momentum was driven by sustained demand in business travel and strong execution across our platforms. For Q1 FY twenty twenty six, we are pleased to report revenue of INR 2,098,000,000.000, which is approximately USD 24,500,000.0, up 99.7% year over year and revenue less service cost or gross margin for the quarter of INR 1,150,000,000.00 or US13.5 million dollars up 36.6% year over year.

Our growth in revenue and gross margins reflects the momentum we have in our corporate business and in the higher margin hotels and packages business on account of continued momentum in MICE and standalone hotel cross selling to existing customers. Notably, our profitability metrics underscore our disciplined execution. Profit for the quarter stood at INR110 million, which is approximately dollars US1.3 versus the loss of 800,000.0 or approximately 100,000.0 in the June. Our adjusted EBITDA of INR $2.00 6,000,000, which is approximately US2.4 million dollars was up 214% year over year, significantly ahead of our annual guidance of 30% growth for adjusted EBITDA. These results reaffirm the strength and sustainability of our business model as well as our commitment to delivering value to our shareholders.

The corporate travel market in India is expected to reach around $20,000,000,000 by FY twenty twenty seven. However, online penetration in this segment remains low at just about 20% in FY twenty twenty four compared to almost 45% of the overall travel market in India. This indicates substantial headroom 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, branded hotels and curated packages are witnessing increasing demand both leisure and MICE travelers supported by improving supply, better service standards and a growing preference for experiential stays.

Overall, this large and expanding market coupled with increasing digital adoption presents a significant opportunity for Yatra, particularly in the underpenetrated corporate segment. Our Corporate Travel segment continues to deliver strong momentum to Yatra. In Q1, we onboarded 34 new corporate clients collectively adding an annual billing potential of approximately INR 2,000,000,000. On the B2C front as well, we continue to make good progress on rationalizing our cost of acquisitions and finding avenues to scale profitably. B2C bookings were more impacted by the macro events of the quarter and declined marginally year over year.

Had it not been for the effect of these macro events, it was likely that B2C gross bookings would have registered a marginal increase year over year. On the technology front, we introduced a more refined user interface, which makes it easier to upsell branded fares across airlines, which offer unique airline specific fare options, bundles with benefits such as baggage allowance, speed selection and flexible changes. We have also recently launched our AI assistant, DIA, which stands for Digital Intelligent Yatra Advisor, which assists customers not only for the usual customer service inquiries, but also helps refine the search and helps book personalized travel products. AI enabled servicing will provide us with further operating leverage in the quarters to come and a more refined search process should enable us to attract new customers to Yamcha. Additionally, our expense management solution offers an end to end travel and expense solution with GenAI powered receipt parcel, ERP integration and advanced analytics and visualization, and it continues to get very positive feedback from its initial customer.

In sales and marketing, we continue to amplify partner offers from banks and airlines through our own media and social media channels, ensuring consistent visibility and engagement. Our content marketing initiatives further strengthen brand reach with compelling travel stories, seasonal campaigns and milestone celebrations that have resonated with our audience. We also executed innovative brand collaborations with leading consumer brands, delivering impactful outdoor campaigns and co branded experiences that captured attention and drove conversion. With regards to our share convertibility as previously stated, we have a strategy in place to restructure to effectively support the conversion of U. S.

Shares into India shares. While some regulatory complexities remain, we are navigating the required processes across multiple jurisdictions. Given this complexity, the timeline is still unclear, but we’ll keep you informed as we continue to make progress. Just to also clarify on this, from an exchange ratio point of view, one U. S.

Share is equivalent to approximately 1.58 shares in India. As you 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 expanding corporate client base, enhanced technology offerings and a growing share of high margin hotels and packages and nights business. We remain committed to disciplined cost management, profitable scaling and delivering long term value to our shareholders while strengthening our competitive edge in the evolving global travel ecosystem. Thank you everyone and I will now request our CFO, Anuj Sethi to brief you on the financial performance for the quarter under review.

Anuj?

Anuj Sethi, CFO, Yatra: Thank you, Dhruv. Good morning, everyone. For the 2026, on consolidated basis, our revenue from operations was INR 2,098 million, which is approximately US24.5 million an increase of 99.7% driven by continued momentum across key segments, including robust growth in our hotels and packages business and a meaningful contribution from ICE business. Our gross margin is defined as a revenue less service cost due to INR $1,156,000,000, approximately 13,500,000.0, rising 36% year on year, underscoring the strength of our diversified business model. Adjusted EBITDA surged to INR206 million, which is approximately $2,400,000 up 214% year on year.

As a result, profit for the period increased to INR110 million, approximately dollars US1.3 In terms of segment performance, our air ticketing passenger volumes declined 9% year on year to $1,206,000 However, gross air bookings grew 4% year on year to INR14103 million, approximately US4.4 million dollars And our year gross margin rose 54% year on year to INR647 million, with margins improving from 3.1% to 4.6%. Under Hotels and Packages segments, the hotel room nights grew marginally by 1% year on year to about 423,000. Gross bookings increased 43% year on year to INR3433 million, while gross margins expanded 74% year on year to INR311 million or US40 million with margins improving from 7.46% to 9.05%. While the macroeconomic headwinds and the recent data crash impacted volumes in both segments, we successfully delivered higher revenue and stronger margins. On the liquidity front, cash and cash equivalent and term deposits stood at the INR 2,002 and 35,000,000, approximately US26 million dollars as of thirtieth June twenty twenty five as compared to US1.9 billion dollars approximately US22

Moderator/Operator: as million

Anuj Sethi, CFO, Yatra: of March 25. Gross debt has been significantly reduced from INR $546,000,000 about $6,000,000 to as of thirty one March twenty twenty five to just about INR 29,000,000, around 300,000.0 as of thirty June twenty twenty five. With this, I would like to hand it back to the moderator and open up for question and answer session. Thank you.

Moderator/Operator: Thank The first question we have comes from Scott Buck with H. C. Wainwright. Your line is open.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: Hi, good morning guys. Thank you very much for the time and congrats on the quarter. Dhruv, I’m curious, given the momentum in MICE, what is your appetite for potentially doing another deal in the space to even accelerate that growth further.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Good morning, Scott. So Scott, we continue to evaluate opportunities. Our endeavor at this point was first to make sure that the Globe acquisition is successfully integrated within Yatra. And that’s something that we’ve been able to achieve over the course of the last two or four quarters. And, we continue to look out for opportunities.

If there is something interesting that comes up, we will obviously evaluate it on its merits. But it’s a it’s a segment that we are quite attracted by. It has the right dynamics from a growth trajectory point of view and also from a profitability point of view. So we will continue to look at avenues to see how we can scale up faster on the Corporate Travel and Buy segments.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: Great. That’s helpful. And then my second question, Dhruv, you mentioned some hurdles remaining in the restructuring. Can you give us just a bit more color on what steps remain? And are you waiting or reliant on the SEC here in The States?

Is it something on the Indian side? Any additional color there, I think, would be helpful.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: So on that side, given that, you know, it’s more of a regulatory process, there isn’t too much else that I can share at this point of time apart from the fact that, you know, we do have a strategy in place that they’re executing on. It does entail working with multiple regulators in different jurisdictions, multiple law firms, right, across different markets. So it is a a time consuming process, but it’s definitely something which is absolutely top of mind for us and the board.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: Okay. And I guess as a bit of a follow-up, what were the quarterly operating expenses tied to this effort? I mean, was it material?

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: The current quarter, they were not as material. In the last quarter, obviously, it was quite significant. But in the current quarter, they were less so. Yeah.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: Okay. I mean, the top

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: quarter, my memory serves me right there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: I appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Thank you, Scott. Thank you.

Moderator/Operator: Thank you. We have another question from Mal Ramesh with Sudetsky. Your line is open.

Mal Ramesh, Analyst, Sudetsky: Hello. Good morning, everyone. Just wanted to check. I see that the gross booking for the company has increased by, if I remember right, like 9% or so. So I thought that overall travel has grown by double digits.

And is it because of the, to some extent, the low growth in terms of air travel and is Yatra not gaining or losing market share in the air and maybe gaining in hotels and meetings.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Hi. Good morning. So, yes, you know, in terms of your question, the overall industry growth rate on the aviation side would have been maybe slightly higher. For Yatra, specifically, has happened is there are two parts to our business. One is the corporate business, which is the larger part of our gross bookings, and then we’ve got the consumer business.

While the corporate business was growing and has grown well ahead of the market, the consumer business, declined marginally. And this what you see is the weighted average impact of the two. The consumer business got impacted to a certain extent also on account of the macro factors in India with, you know, there being a border to, skirmish with Pakistan in the month of May, and then there was a large air crash in the month of June, both of which negatively impacted consumer sentiment when it came to travel. Business travel, on the other hand, recovered quite promptly. Hence, the business travel arm of our of Yatra was able to grow at a rate which was much higher, but the b two c business did lag behind a bit.

On the hotels and packages, given that the hotels and mice packages are largely on the corporate travel side, there you see growth rate which is well ahead of market.

Mal Ramesh, Analyst, Sudetsky: Okay. Thank you. What’s the share of your business, the corporate travel business, consumer? It used to be, what, two third, one third the target now?

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Yes, sir. So corporate is about, you know, two thirds, and consumer is one third.

Mal Ramesh, Analyst, Sudetsky: Okay. Still maintaining the ratios. Okay. Thank you. And just another question on a different topic.

There is a I mean, you were going through restructuring of companies, merging every company into whatever you have for limited. Is that going to provide any significant savings or it’s not a material amount?

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: It will be there will be some saving which will be there, plus there will be tax saving as well, which will happen. So in India, the tax savings impact of that will be about approximately $05,000,000 plus a year.

Mal Ramesh, Analyst, Sudetsky: Okay. Thank you. That’s very helpful. Thank you. I have no more questions.

Thank you.

Moderator/Operator: Thank you. I can confirm we have no further questions. And that concludes the question and answer session here. And I would like to hand it back to management for some final closing comments.

Dhruv Shringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Thank you, operator. And I’d like to thank all of you for joining the call today. If you have any further questions, you can reach out to our IR partner at ICR. Thank you once again for participating in today’s call, and we look forward to your support going forward. Thank you.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H.C. Wainwright: Thank you.

Moderator/Operator: Thank you all for dialing in. I can confirm that does conclude today’s conference call with Diotra. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect, and please enjoy the rest of your day.

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