Paytm targets 10 mn monthly tickets across its flights, trains and bus ticket bookings this year

Driven by the consistent growth in its Flights, Trains and Bus ticketing, Paytm has acquired a significant share of India's online travel market within a very short span of time.

More than three million passengers booked their travel on Paytm in May this year, with a majority of these bookings coming from tier II and tier III cities. The company is now looking to further establish itself as a dominant player with an aggressive target to book 10 million monthly travel tickets this financial year.

Paytm has been able to effectively address the needs of mobile-only travelers across India. The company had launched flight and rail ticket bookings in July and October last year respectively.

Within months of launch, it has seen a massive surge in bookings - emerging among the top three players in flights and the largest for tickets, after IRCTC. Today more than 93 percent of its rail bookings come from the app, and its travel offerings are vastly popular across cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Goa and Jaipur among others.

This growth has been largely driven by Paytm's strong penetration in non-metros coupled with product disruptions like insurance against bus ticket cancellation, zero cancellation-processing fee on flight tickets and instant refunds among others.

"We are excited about the overwhelming response received over the last 12 months. This year, we want to target further three times growth as we work towards achieving a dominant position in the country's fast growing online travel market," said vice president - Paytm, Abhishek Rajan.

"Our efforts are focused on building superior travel booking experiences that customers love," added Rajan.

Paytm is the first horizontal major to enter online travel, a segment hitherto dominated by vertical players. In January this year, Paytm's travel business crossed USD 500 million annualized GMV run rate, while booking 2 Mn tickets per month.

The company is targeting USD two billion annualized GMV run rate by Mar 2018. It has chosen Bengaluru as the base for its travel business and is looking to ramp up its travel team to 250 in the coming months.