Yatra Online, Inc.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining today's Yatra Fiscal second quarter 2024 earnings call. We are currently just pausing for a couple of minutes to allow a few more participants to connect, but we will be getting underway shortly. During the call, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. And thank you again for your patience and for standing by. We will be getting underway shortly. Thank you. hello everyone and welcome to today's call titled the yatra fiscal second quarter 2024 earnings call my name is ellen and i'll be the call operator for today during the presentation all participants will be on mute however at the end of today's presentation there'll be an opportunity to ask a question if you'd like to ask a question at this time please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad if at any point your question's been answered or you change your mind and would like to revoke your question please press star followed by two I would now like to turn the call over to Manish Herman Raji, Vice President of Corporate Development and IRs Begin. Please go ahead whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Ellen. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Yatra's fiscal second quarter 2024 financial results for Spirit ended September 30th, 2023. I'm pleased to be joined on the call today by Yatra CEO and co-founder, Dhruv Sringi, and Group CFO, Rohan Mittal. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, reflects management views as of today, November 17, 2023. We don't undertake 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 file earlier this morning. These filings are available from the SEC and also on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, let me turn the call over to Dhruv. Dhruv, please go ahead.

Thank you, Manish, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. It is my pleasure to share that for the third consecutive quarter, we have expanded our market share in the air travel sector. In the second quarter of 2024, our air passenger bookings surged by 31.2% year over year, far outpacing the industry's growth rate of 22.7%. This not only underscores the Yatra brand's resilience, but also highlights our competitive edge in capturing market share. International travel has also shown a steady improvement during the quarter ended September 30th, 2023, reaching approximately 90% of the pre-COVID levels. As we move forward, we remain optimistic and committed to leveraging these positive trends to drive further growth and success. In the corporate travel sector, we further strengthened our position by securing 13 new corporate accounts in the quarter. These accounts carry a potential annual billing of about 813 million INR, which is roughly USD 10 million, reflecting our platform's capability and leadership in the market. Beyond the quarter, we have continued our momentum in closing deals with significant clients like Wells Farms and a major multinational corporation, wherein we will manage their travel needs across various regions in Africa, in Asia, further expanding our influence and operational footprint. Additionally, as some of you may have seen in our press release this morning, I would also like to share that the board has authorized the share repurchase of up to USD 5 billion of our NASDAQ-listed YTRA shares, underscoring our confidence in Yatra's future and our steady-fast commitment to delivering shareholder value. This authorization represents approximately 5% of Yatra Online Inc.' 's market capitalization based on the current share price. Now let me provide some more color on the macro picture. According to the International Monetary Fund, Global inflation is projected to gradually decrease from 8.7% in 2022 to 6.9% in 2023 and further to 5.8% in 2024. This trend is attributed to the implementation of tighter monetary policies and the stabilization of international commodity prices. Amidst this backdrop of softening inflation, India's economic landscape remains particularly robust void by a significant public capital expenditure initiative and a strong domestic economy. The Indian economy is poised for consistent growth with projections estimating 6.3% increase over 2023 and 2024. This positive trajectory underscores the resilience and dynamic nature of our economy. Travel does tend to be closely linked to the growth in GDP, and over the past decade, we have seen travel growing anywhere between 1.5x to 2x of GDP growth. India's per capita GDP has also witnessed an extraordinary growth trajectory. Increase in GDP per capita has required four decades from 1960 to 2000 to achieve a fivefold increase. But the same fivefold increase has been achieved in just the last two decades. This is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 25%. The surge in per capita income is a key driver for heightened discretionary spend with travel and dining out emerging as the primary beneficiaries. Amidst this landscape of an accelerating rise in discretionary income, we are confident in our potential to surpass market growth rates. Our strategy to capture a greater share in the corporate travel market, coupled with the sustained strength of our consumer brand, positions us well for continued expansion and success. Now let me provide you with some more details on our second quarter. Our revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, was reported at Rs. 947.6 million, approximately USD 11.4 million, up 14% year-over-year. Adjusted margins from air ticketing of USD 12.3 million were down by 4.8% year-over-year, largely on account of an almost 15% decline in air ticket prices year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter reached INR 35 million, approximately USD 400,000. This is lower versus the September of 2022 quarter at INR 77.7 million or approximately USD 900,000. We incurred IPO related listing fees during the quarter of INR 68.2 million or USD 0.8 million, which are one time in nature. Moving on to further details of the quarter. The corporate segment was somewhat impacted in the September quarter with softness and travel spend in the IT and ITEA sectors. We are confident, however, of the recovery in the near term from our largest contributing sector. We expect that the new business that we have won is likely to offset the drop that we have seen on account of the softness in the ITEA segment by the first quarter of calendar year 2024. On the hotel front, Revenue from our hotel and packages business was INR 366 million, which is approximately USD 4.4 million, in the three months ended September 30, 2023. As compared to INR 267 million, or USD 3.2 million, in the three months ended September 30, 2022, this reflects a 37% increase year over year. The increase in revenue is attributable to recovery in domestic travel, along with the addition of new distribution partners and the focus on selling better quality hotels aimed at business travelers. From a competitive standpoint, the intensity has remained stable from the last quarter and remains manageable overall. With the positive macro backdrop and given the ongoing recovery in corporate and leisure travel and the rise in discretionary spend and now a significantly bolstered balance sheet, we believe we are poised for a strong FY24 and FY25. Aside from seasonality, we expect our results to benefit from accelerating growth in both our corporate business and consumer business as we continue to add to our formidable blue chip customer base and leverage the strength of our brand. Just to reiterate, today, Yatra India serves one out of every four of the top 100 listed companies in India, three out of the big four accounting firms, and three of the top five technology companies in India. In addition, as part of the IPO, We have also earmarked rupees 1.5 billion, USD approximately 19 million towards M&A, and are evaluating opportunities in the B2B space that allow us to expand our product platform for our business travel customers. Given our stronger balance sheet following the IPO, we've already begun to see early signs of improving supplier margins in the current quarter and expect this to gain further momentum in the quarters ahead. and have a meaningful positive impact on our operating performance going forward. In addition, we have also seen the positive impact from the IPO and a stronger balance sheet in one of our large corporate customer contract discussions, which has had a favorable outcome for Yatra, and we expect to see more of these in the quarter to come. With these positive tailwinds, we expect our operating performance to continue to improve quarter on quarter in the near term. With that, let me hand it over to Rohan to walk you through the details of the financial performance. Rohan?