Ixigio Overview
They are a tech company with a focus to help Indian travellers to plan their trips. The global travel industry the have witnessed several disruptions because of pandemics and geo political issues. Their evolution from a meta search engine to a utility platform and an online travel agent platform helped them to gain and keep a lot of customers. They have gained users from not tier 1 cities but from tier 2 and 3 cities also which means that they are gaining some penetration into India and cities. They assist travellers into making smarter choices by leveraging AI to help them. Thye manage all their customers through their 4 main apps and websites one for each segment of planes, trains, buses and hotels. Their multi brands strategy is to allow their customers to have some flexibility and most of their apps also offers various other services so that their customers have a one point stand for everything. Their revenue comes form various different sources and they are service charges on bookings, advertising, and the up-selling or cross-selling of additional services. They also have partnerships with IRCTC, various airlines, hotel aggregators, and bus operators which allows them to offer more competitive prices to their users. They also have added personalisation ai to their platforms to ensure swift service for the customer. As Indias travel market continues to expand and customers need more value added services ixigos ability to tap into small towns and cities will allow it to grow a lot in the expanding market. By them prioritising innovation and offering comprehensive solutions it allowed them to expand their reach from tier 1 to tier 2 and 3 regions. They have recently added hotel bookings to their platform and they also have services which allow them to help customer who don’t have internet or gps to ensure and uninterrupted travel time. By offering multi modal travel forms they make travel easier and cater to a much more diverse range of people throughout India. They use advanced technology to improve operational efficiency and customer experience. This also helps them improve their algorithm’s for search results. Their technological advancements have allowed them to develop apps that can handle user traffic and complex orders. They use the cloud to store user data to make sure that it is safe. They also have some open sourced technology to boost their performance while reducing maintenance cost. Their AI trip planner delivers detail led itineraries for their users with real time information. With assured flex customers can change and cancel their plans with no fees. Their bus travel abhi assured and their compensation for service issues are 150 percent of their fares. Their AI driven personal travel assistant helps their customer by answering their questions while utilising its deep learning and contextual awareness to offer tailored solutions that enhance user satisfaction. Their user first structure helps them with attracting new users. They have a wide range of product offerings which will allow them to capitalise on new opportunities. Supported by technology driven operation they have high operational margins. One of their main things that can help them keep customers is their loyalty program in which they offer indigo points which can be redeemed for future bookings and stuff like that on their website. These initiatives have also attracted more people to their platforms. The Indian travel market is growing and in this age the online booking and stuff like that are also going to grow. With governments enhancing travel with infrastructure and stuff like that it is also supposed to boost Indias travel industry by a lot. They strategically acquired ahi bus and their confimtkt apps which have strengthened their position in these areas and they are also steadily gaining market share in their 3 main areas of flights, trains and buses with them still getting into the hotel business. They have 480 million annual users which is around a third of the amount of people in India. They also made sure that all their product offering can be bought by using one app so that customers can buy their whole trips using the train app even if they want to buy a train ticket then a hotel room then a flight ticket it can all be done with one app. They are continuously working towards new ways to provide better solutions for their customers but they think that it is going to be hard for them to grow from a point and will need to rely on AI a bit for the ideas. In the flights segment despite the slowdown in the last 2 quarters they witnessed good growth in the last 2 quarters. They expect continued growth in the flight segment but believe that they need to invest more in first time booker discounts and branding to keep up the momentum and this could impact their revenue in the for the short term. On the bus front they believe that there is immense potential because the amount of bus tickets booked online are less than 20 percent. For the trains they think that they will witness steady growth and improvements in their market share which would be driven by their strategies. Some key growth drivers in their industry include economic expansion for India, the travel surge that India is witnessing now, the increase in investments for infrastructure and lastly the expansion of the online booking in the travel industry. Some opportunities that they have to capitalise on these are that they can enhance their reach and service portfolio, they can also leverage their cross selling and up selling capabilities, they are also focusing on user experience enhancement and lastly they are also focusing on strategic partnerships and acquisitions. 56 percent of their revenue comes from trains, 22 by flight and 20 by bus and I believe that the remaining 2 percent is done by hotels.