Earnings call transcript: Yatra Q3 FY25 revenue surges, stock steady

Yatra Online Inc. (market cap: $66.7 million) reported a significant increase in revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, with figures showing a 113% year-over-year growth. Despite this robust performance, the company’s actual revenue fell short of market forecasts, leading to a stable stock price in premarket trading. The company’s shares closed at $1.14, marking a 2.7% increase from the previous day. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears undervalued based on its Fair Value calculation, with analysts maintaining a Buy consensus.

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Key Takeaways

• Yatra reported a 113% YoY increase in Q3 FY25 revenue.
• Gross margin grew by 25% YoY.
• Adjusted EBITDA saw a 173% YoY increase.
• The company’s stock price increased by 2.7% following the earnings release.
• Despite strong growth, revenue missed forecasts.

Company Performance

Yatra demonstrated strong financial performance in Q3 FY25, with significant growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. The company maintains a healthy balance sheet with more cash than debt, and a current ratio of 2.09x indicates strong liquidity. The company has made strides in reducing gross debt and expanding its client base, onboarding 50 new corporate clients. However, a slight decline in gross bookings indicates potential challenges in maintaining momentum.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: INR 2,350,000,000 (113% YoY increase)
• Gross Margin: INR 1,040,000,000 (25% YoY growth)
• Adjusted EBITDA: INR 121,500,000 (173% YoY increase)
• Gross Bookings: INR 1,800,000,000 (3.4% YoY decline)
• Cash and Term Deposits: INR 1,890,000,000
• Gross Debt: INR 33,000,000 (significant reduction)

Earnings vs. Forecast

Yatra’s Q3 FY25 revenue of INR 2,350,000,000 fell short of the forecasted INR 15,000,000. This miss highlights a gap in market expectations versus actual performance, although the company’s strong YoY growth may mitigate some investor concerns.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Yatra’s stock remained stable in premarket trading, closing at $1.14, up 2.7% from the previous day. This movement suggests that investors are cautiously optimistic about the company’s growth prospects despite the revenue miss. InvestingPro data shows analysts have set a significantly higher target price of $3.89, suggesting substantial upside potential.

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Outlook & Guidance

Yatra is focusing on high-margin businesses and expanding its hotel and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) segments. The company is also enhancing its corporate travel solutions and maintaining cost discipline. Future guidance includes exploring corporate restructuring to optimize operations.

Executive Commentary

CEO Dhruv Sringi emphasized the company’s strategic initiatives, stating, "We continue to refine our strategic initiatives to maintain our leadership in the corporate travel sector." He also highlighted the potential of the organized MICE market, noting, "We are just at the moment, from an organized sector point of view, just dipping our toes literally in the ocean."

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue Miss: Falling short of revenue forecasts could impact investor confidence.
• Gross Bookings Decline: A 3.4% decrease in gross bookings suggests potential market challenges.
• Increased Personal Expenses: Costs rose by 34% due to acquisitions and appraisals, which could affect profitability.
• Market Competition: Intense competition in the travel industry may pressure margins.
• Economic Conditions: Macroeconomic factors could influence corporate travel demand.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the potential of the MICE market, with Yatra highlighting the untapped opportunity in the organized sector. Discussions also revolved around the timeline for onboarding large corporate clients, which typically takes 6-9 months for full wallet share integration.

Full transcript - Yatra Online Inc (YTRA) Q3 2025:

Ezra, Conference Call Coordinator: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Yatra Third Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. My name is Ezra, and I will be your coordinator today. I will now hand you over to Manish Himrajani, VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Manish, please go ahead.

Manish Himrajani, VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Yatra: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our earnings conference call for the fiscal third quarter of twenty twenty five covering the period ended 12/31/2024. I’m pleased to be joined on the call today by Yatra, CEO and Co Founder Dhruv Sringi and CFO, Rohan Mehta. Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that certain statements made on today’s call may constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For a detailed discussion of these risks, please refer to our party with the SEC and the press release we issued earlier today, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

With that, I turn the call over to Dhruv. Dhruv, please go ahead.

Dhruv Sringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Thank you, Ganesh. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our third quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. For the quarter ended 12/31/2024, we reported revenue from operations of INR $2,350,000,000 representing a year over year increase of 113%. Our revenue less service cost, which is our gross margin grew 25% year over year to INR $1,040,000,000 These are primarily driven by strong performance in our Hotels and Packages segment, particularly within our Corporate Travel segment, including our meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions business, which is our MICE business.

The robust growth in our Corporate Travel business underscores our ability to capture the rising demand for Corporate Travel and event management services, further solidifying our market presence. Our corporate travel segment continued to demonstrate strength showing significant growth across all major metrics. In the third quarter of FY twenty twenty five, we onboarded a record 50 new corporate clients collectively adding an annual billing potential of INR 2,800,000,000.0, which is approximately $32,200,000 reinforcing our leadership in the corporate travel space. This not only expanded our corporate client portfolio but also provided us access to some clients in new industries which allows us to then build on that to go deeper into those market segments. The integration of Globe, which is a company that we acquired in September 2024 is progressing ahead of schedule.

The acquisition continues to generate positive synergies contributing to our profitability and strengthening our supplier relationships. Our Hotels and Packages segment saw a robust year over year adjusted margin increase of 65.8% with the hotel gross bookings up 83. The growth was driven by our strategic focus on cross selling standalone hotels to our existing corporate client base and growth in the new MICE business. Additionally, we saw improved conversion rates in our hotel business due to enhanced platform features, better inventory management and strategic supplier relationships. Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter stood 75% year over year.

Two INR’s are $12,100,000 This strong performance underscores the continued momentum of our strategic initiatives and our focus on profitable growth and operational efficiency. Despite competitive pressures in the B2C segment, we have stabilized volumes in our Air business and are focused on improving operational performance. While direct airline supplier pricing continues to be a challenge, our strategic efforts to enhance personal travel offerings for corporate clients and their employees have yielded positive results. The attached rate of personal travel bookings to our corporate channel increased by nearly 22% year over year, underscoring the effectiveness of our integrated travel solutions. This channel continues to be a cost effective means of customer acquisition for us.

Additionally, yafsa.com maintains strong brand recall, which has helped offset industry headwinds in a relatively short period of time. Our ability to leverage this brand strength coupled with deeper inroads into selling personal travel to corporate employees has positioned us well for the same growth. With the stabilized B2C air business and an improving attach rate for personal travel, we anticipate incremental gains moving forward. The strength of our brand was further reinforced by the recent recognition of Yatra as one of India’s biggest brand movers by YouGov for December 2024, reflecting significant gains in brand awareness, consumer engagement and reputation. This recognition underscores the impact of our customer centric approach, technology advancements and ongoing efforts to enhance travel experience for millions of customers.

We are also making good progress towards simplifying our corporate structure. The board appointed restructuring committee, has come up with some pathways and we are actively engaging with relevant advisors and regulators across different jurisdictions to develop a comprehensive proposal aimed at streamlining operations and enhancing shareholder value. We continue to enhance the capabilities of our corporate SaaS platform as well. While it’s early days, our expense management solution recap is progressing well with several prospects evaluating the product as a cross sell opportunity alongside with existing outside travel solution as well as a standalone solution. Our expense management solution leverages some of the latest innovations in AI, which enables it to deliver a superior customer experience.

In addition, we continue to leverage AI to automate back end customer service tasks, which we believe will further provide us with greater opportunities on the operating cost leverage front. These initiatives combined with disciplined execution and a scalable cost structure will support sustained margin expansion and operational excellence. Switching facts to the macro environment. As per a recent Deloitte study, India’s corporate travel market is expected to double by two thousand and thirty to twenty point eight billion dollars This growth is projected to be driven by economic growth, infrastructure improvements and technology advancements. The Deloitte report highlights that our travel management company are central to this growth leveraging AI powered chatbots, voice assisted booking systems and real time data analytics to provide tailored seamless experiences for business travelers.

Business and leisure trips are increasingly getting combined, which is changing the hospitality sector. The report underscores how D leisure, the blending of business and leisure travel is gaining momentum. This bodes well for our cross sell opportunity to sell leisure travel to our corporate customers where we’ve been seeing increased attach rates over the last few quarters. While challenges remain in the B2C segment, we are highly encouraged for the strong momentum we are experiencing in our corporate travel business alongside the value creation expected from the Globe acquisition and the growth in our MICE segments. The addition of record new corporate accounts and the development in our MICE business exemplify our commitment to delivering long term value for stakeholders.

Looking ahead, we are confident in our ability to sustain growth in high margin businesses while continuing to improve profitability. Our focus remains on expanding our hotel and packages and mice business to further diversify our revenue streams. Enhancing corporate travel solutions including expense management and cross selling opportunities to maximize customer value. Maintaining cost discipline and operational efficiency while investing strategically in key growth areas. We continue to refine our strategic initiatives to maintain our leadership in the corporate travel sector and are also looking at restructuring efforts that will help us drive long term shareholder value.

With that, I’ll hand the call over to Rohan, who will provide a more detailed breakdown of our financial performance. Rohan?

Rohan Mehta, CFO, Yatra: Thank you, Dhruv. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. I’m pleased to take you through Yatra’s financial performance for the third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five. For Q3 FY25, our gross bookings totaled INR 1,800,000,000.0, which is roughly USD $211,000,000, reflecting a 3.4 decline year over year.

This was primarily driven by reduced air travel volumes in the B2C segment as we strategically adjusted discounts to address intensified price competition. This was offset by a strong rebound in our Hotels and Packages segment, which grew 81% year over year. From a profitability standpoint, we’ve delivered robust results. Adjusted EBITDA reached INR 121,500,000.0, which is roughly USD 1,400,000.0, marking a substantial 173% year over year increase. This improvement was fueled by continued cost optimizations, a shift toward higher margin segments and disciplined operational execution.

Moving on to the segment performance. On the air ticketing side, our adjusted margin came in at INR $858,000,000, which is a free USD 10,000,000, down 23% year over year. The decline was attributed to a combination of lower gross bookings and a reduction in headline take rates due to a mix change. Despite the decline, we continue to leverage our B2B business and corporate travel solutions to stabilize margins in this segment. On the hotels and packages, adjusted margins surged to INR438 million, which is roughly USD 5,100,000.0, an increase of 66% year over year.

This growth was largely driven by the expansion of our NICE segment, as well as improved cross selling initiatives, which have strengthened customer engagement and increased our wallet share for travel. Moving on to expenses, marketing and sales promotion costs declined by 32% year over year. This reduction was a result of optimized spending in our B2C segment. Personal expenses including ESOP cost increased by 34% year over year. This was primarily due to the full quarter impact of the recently acquired entity GLOBE as well as the annual appraisal side.

Further, we continue to invest in MICE and expense management teams in line with our overall strategic focus. Other operating expenses saw a 9% increase over year over year. This was primarily due to the business combination effect and the full quarter effect of acquisition of Globe. Looking at liquidity, as of thirty one December twenty twenty four, our cash and term deposits totaled INR 1,890,000,000.00, which is roughly USD 22,000,000, maintaining a very strong liquidity position. Our gross debt was down to INR 33,000,000, which is a share below $500,000 reflecting a significant reduction from trial levels.

With this, I’d like to hand over the call back to the moderator to open up for Q and A. Thank you.

Ezra, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you very much. We will now open the floor for the Q and A session. Our first question comes from Scott Buck with H. C. Wainwright.

Scott, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H. C. Wainwright: Hello, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. Dhruv, I’m curious given the momentum you’re seeing in mice, can you give us an indication or some color around how large that market is? Just trying to understand how long, this kind of positive momentum can continue?

Dhruv Sringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: Wise (LON:WISEa) in India is a highly fragmented market, Scott. Firstly, good morning to you. Wise in India is a highly fragmented market. And if I look at the organized sector point of view, the organized sector barely accounts for about 15% of the overall Mice business. The overall Mice business is in India is expected to be close to about between $8,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 on an annualized basis.

So it’s highly fragmented, offers a tremendous amount of opportunity for long term growth as we move forward. We are just at the moment, from an organized sector point of view, just dipping our toes literally in the ocean. Great. That’s helpful. And then can you

Scott Buck, Analyst, H. C. Wainwright: remind us how long it takes to ramp a corporate client relationship once they’re onboarded? I forget, do you get 100% of their business on day one? Or does that take some time?

Dhruv Sringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: So in that regard, I would qualify that answer into two parts or categorize that answer into two parts. For accounts which are typically more than about $5,000,000 per year, These kinds of companies will go live in a phased manner. They will typically take maybe one division or one location live and from there then do a ramp up, right. So that kind of a scenario will take anywhere between six to nine months to get to the appropriate run rate of our share of wallet. In terms of accounts which are less than $5,000,000 and more so in that $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 kind of range, these accounts will go live within a three to six month period.

Okay, perfect. And then can you tell

Scott Buck, Analyst, H. C. Wainwright: us what Global India’s revenue contribution was during the quarter?

Dhruv Sringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: So while we don’t call that out separately, just to give you a baseline, Globes sorry, revenue and revenue less service cost more importantly last year was approximately about $5,400,000 or $5,300,000 in terms of revenue less service cost.

Scott Buck, Analyst, H. C. Wainwright: Okay. I appreciate that. And then last one for me. Any update on timeline on the work the board is doing on potential legal structure and just kind of curious when we could potentially see a resolution if any?

Dhruv Sringi, CEO and Co-Founder, Yatra: So we’re working with appropriate counsel in different jurisdictions. We’ve made, I would consider meaningful progress over the last three months as part of the efforts that we’ve undertaken. And I’m hopeful that at some point in the relatively near future we can come back with something more concrete. Okay. I appreciate that.

Thanks for your time guys. Yeah. Thank you.

Ezra, Conference Call Coordinator: There are currently no more questions. I will hand back over to Manish for any closing remarks.

Manish Himrajani, VP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Yatra: Thank you everyone for joining the call today. As always, we are available for follow ups. Please feel free to reach out for the same. Thank you.

Ezra, Conference Call Coordinator: Thank you very much, Manish. And thank you, Dhruv and Rohan, for being today’s speakers. That concludes our conference call. We appreciate everyone for joining us today. You may now disconnect your lines.

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