Paytm to invest Rs 250 crore in travel business, targets 100 pc growth

Digital payments company Paytm on Thursday said it will invest Rs 250 crore in its travel business over the next six months.

This investment will be used to scale up the product and technology team, set up new business verticals and raise market share in the existing travel vertical.

Paytm claims a customer base of more than 1.5 crore and an annual gross merchandise value of Rs 7,100 crore in its travel vertical business.

"We continue to witness strong growth in tier-II and III cities, which account for over 65 per cent of our new customers. This investment will help us further bolster our position as a dominant player in the travel booking space," Abhishek Rajan, senior vice-president of Paytm Travel, said in a statement.

The company claims to sell more than six million travel tickets every month and is targeting to grow the business by 100 per cent in the current financial year.

"Our users have saved more than Rs 60 crore from our free cancellation feature on flight and bus ticket bookings. We are perhaps the only player in the travel industry that doesn't charge a fee to process flight ticket cancellation requests," Rajan said.

Paytm said that more than 90 per cent of bookings coming from mobile app. The company has chosen Bengaluru as the base of operations for its travel business where it has set up a strong team of over 300 members.