Mohit Kabra
Analyst · Kevin Kopelman of Cowen and Company. Your line is now open
Thanks, Rajesh, and hello, everyone. I'd like to begin with 2 important reporting-related callout. First, we have now entered the second full fiscal year following the ibibo Group manager, which was completed at the end of January 2017. As a result, this reported quarter onwards, our results will provide readers a complete like-for-like and fully consolidated comparison on a year-over-year basis. Accordingly, we've removed pro forma disclosures from our earnings release. Second, this is also the first quarter post adoption of the new IFRS 15 revenue recognition standard, under which promotion expenses in the nature of customer discounts, customer inducements, or acquisition cost or royalty program costs, which were incurred previously, were recorded as marketing and sales promotion costs, are now being recorded as a reduction of revenue. As a result, the revenue for Q1 of this fiscal year stands at $137.4 million. Considering that we have adopted the new standard, by using the cumulative asset method, the comparative information has not been restated and the revenue for Q1 of last year stands at $192 million. Beginning this quarter, we've also changed the non-IFRS financial measure, revenue less service cost to adjusted revenue. Accordingly, adjusted revenue will henceforth reflect the true value addition of travel services that we provide to our customers. The adjusted revenue at $170.1 million grew by 25% year-on-year in constant currency terms compared to $141.2 million in the same quarter last year. As this is the first quarter post adoption of the new revenue standard, I'd walk through the computation of adjusted revenue. In the same quarter last year, the IFRS revenue of $192.1 million has $9.3 million of promotional expenses, which were netted off as a contra revenue. This was added back along with a deduction of $60.2 million towards cost of services, where the company act as a principal instead of acting as an agent in computing the adjusted revenue of $141.2 million. In this quarter, in view of the new revenue standard, the IFRS revenue of $137.4 million has $92.4 million of promotional expenses, netted off as contra revenue. Adding this back along with the deduction of $60.2 million towards cost of services, results in existed revenue being $170.1 million. Correspondingly, these promotional expenses netted as contra revenue to the tune of $92.4 million in current reported quarter and $9.3 million in the same quarter last year has resulted in total marketing and sales promotion expenses increasing marginally to about $149 million versus $142.4 million in the same quarter last year. During Q1, while our marketing and sales promotion expenses have increased by about $7 million on a year-on-year basis, our adjusted revenue has drawn by about $29 million on a year-on-year basis. Due to all other costs largely remaining in line with last year, this has helped us drive the reduction of about $19.5 million in adjusted operating losses. The adjusted operating loss, therefore, has gone down from $52.3 million in Q1 last year to $32.8 million in Q1 this fiscal year. Before I delve into further highlights of the reported quarter's financial performance, I'd like to recap that during the last fiscal year, which we started soon after the ibibo Group merger, we had focused on driving higher growth in the combined business during the first half of the year and then shifted focus on improving operating efficiencies in the second half of the fiscal. In the new fiscal year, subject to any changes in market dynamics, we would like to continue driving operating efficiencies, particularly in the first half of the fiscal year, while accelerating growth in the back half of the fiscal year. In the given backdrop, here are a few more highlights from our first quarter's financial performance. In Q1, we report our highest quarterly gross bookings ever of over $1.4 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of over 26%, and a quarter-on-quarter growth of over 23% in constant currency terms, largely in line with the gross booking growth. As I had mentioned, our adjusted revenue of $170.1 million grew by about 25% year-on-year, and also a 22% quarter-on-quarter growth in constant currency terms. During Q1, the adjusted revenue growth and expand efficiencies achieved was the result of greater brand loyalty, driven by increased effectiveness of customer-retention programs and the continued optimization of promotional expense, particularly in the budget segment of hotels as well as optimizing of other operating cost lines. Let me now share more details of our key business segments, starting with the strategically important hotels and packages business. During the seasonally high quarter, total hotels and packages room night increased to over 6.7 million room nights, which is a 16.3% year-on-year growth, a slight acceleration in the rate of growth when compared to the year-on-year growth of about 15% achieved in the previous quarter. The quarter-on-quarter growth in total H&P room nights was about 38%, reflecting the seasonality of the travel industry and helped by growth in holiday packages room night. In standalone hotels, growth in terms of room nights at 18.1% year-on-year of broadly in line with the year-on-year growth rate reported in the previous quarters. The quarter-on-quarter growth in online standalone hotels was about 38%, again reflecting our ability to make most of the peak seasonalities. Moving to our air ticking business, where we continue to grow alongside the domestic aviation market. In Q1, our air ticketing segments increased to nearly $9.2 million compared to $7.8 million in Q1 of the previous fiscal year. And on a year-on-year basis, the air ticketing segments grew by over 17%. It is important to note that our domestic air ticketing segments grew in line with market and our international outbound segments continue to experience great growth. However, our de-emphasis on our legacy inbound rate ticketing business did have a muting effect on the overall reported air growth for the quarter. The net revenue for Q1 at $54.4 million for the air ticketing business was higher than the $45.6 million we reported in Q1 of last year, and reflects about 24% year-on-year growth in constant currency terms. In Q1, the bus ticketing business continue to grow robustly. For the current quarter, the bus ticketing business achieved adjusted revenue growth of 48.9% year-on-year in constant currency terms. This has resulted in more than $187.6 million of total bus gross bookings being achieved, and nearly $14.9 million bus tickets being utilized for travel and over $16 million in net revenue being earned from this fast-growing and largely underpenetrated segment. In Q1, our other business segments reported adjustment -- adjusted revenue of nearly $5.8 million, a majority of which was driven by the contribution of facilitation fees for travel insurance. Lastly, for the rest of the fiscal year 2019, we plan to keep executing on our 3 strategic priorities and remain on course to maintaining and expanding our market leadership, while continuing to optimize marketing and promotional expense, particularly in the budget segment of hotels. With this, I'd like to thank you for joining the call, and open up the call for Q&A. Operator, please?