IPO-Bound ixigo glides into the red, reports loss of INR 21 Cr in FY22
- ByStartupStory | July 29, 2022
ixigo, the IPO-bound online travel aggregator, announced a consolidated loss of INR 21 Cr in the fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22), compared to a profit of INR 7.5 Cr in FY21, due to the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel demand. ixigo’s operational revenue increased by 180 percent year on year (YoY) to INR 379.6 Cr from INR 135.5 Cr in FY21, but a large increase in costs affected the startup’s bottom line. In FY22, ixigo’s overall costs nearly quadrupled to INR 402.5 Cr, up from INR 135.7 Cr in FY21.
The launch of a free cancellation service for flying businesses in August 2021, as well as a rise in free cancellation deals across business segments, contributed significantly to the category’s increase in expenditures. Advertising and sales promotion also increased 567 percent year on year to INR 57.5 Cr from INR 8.6 Cr in FY21. The purchase of Confirm Ticket & Abhibus also contributed to the increase in expenditures.
In August of last year, the startup announced the purchase of Hyderabad-based bus ticketing & aggregation platform AbhiBus, while Confirm Ticket was announced in February 2021. However, expenditure on employee perks was the largest contributor to its overall expenses in FY22. Due to a rise in salaries, wages, bonuses, and ESOP charges, the expenses under this heading grew by more than 173.4 percent to INR 95.1 Cr from INR 34.8 Cr in FY21.
In a statement to shareholders, ixigo cofounders Aloke Bajpai & Rajnish Kumar stated, “…we continued to preserve the speed and agility and agility to respond promptly to the shifting business climate owing to the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak.” We elected not to lay off any team members because we recognized that this was, above all, a humanitarian disaster.”
ixigo collects and compares real-time travel information including airline pricing, train schedules, and other means of transportation, and competes with EaseMyTrip and Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip, among others. The recent dramatic recovery in world travel demand, along with the reduced impact of the epidemic, has boosted online travel aggregators (OTAs). ixigo gained approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for its INR 1,600 Cr IPO in December of last year and is on track to go public.
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