Revenue a second order effect over customer experience: Ixigo CEO

Online travel aggregator sets sights on doubling flight segment share and outpacing market growth

Online travel aggregator (OTA) ixigo aims to grow its gross transaction value at a pace faster than the market and to elevate its market share in the flight segment from its current single-digit figure to double digits in the medium term.

For ixigo, customer experience remains paramount. The company, holding a 5-6 per cent market share in the flight segment, plans to expand this by targeting passenger conversions from air-conditioned (AC) 2-tier and AC 3-tier train travellers. It is also enhancing its offerings with features like Flight Tracker Pro, which allows users to track details such as boarding gates and baggage collection belt numbers directly through the application.

“Our playbook on most of our launches has been straightforward. If we identify an acute customer problem that remains unsolved, we will address it, even if there’s no immediate monetisation. For everything we’ve built, revenue has been a second-order effect,” Aloke Bajpai, chairman and group chief executive officer of ixigo, told Business Standard.

Additional capacity in the coming months will also aid the company in increasing its segment share, he added.

The aggregator, which went public in June this year, reported a 78 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) increase in net profit to Rs 15 crore for the first quarter of the current financial year (2024-25). Its gross transaction value exceeded Rs 2,988 crore, marking a 27 per cent Y-o-Y growth.

Looking ahead, ixigo plans to leverage rising demand from Tier-II and Tier-III cities, where it holds a strong presence. As of June 30, the company had a 94.23 per cent penetration rate in Tier-II and Tier-III towns.

The average transaction value per segment on the platform has increased by 9 per cent Y-o-Y.

“This means that customers are spending more on our platform, either by buying higher-value products or additional value-added services. This trend of premiumisation is also evident in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, where our penetration levels provide a unique advantage. This will continue to benefit us in the future,” Bajpai, who is also the managing director, added.

“While the OTA market is expected to grow at 18 per cent Y-o-Y, we aim to exceed that growth rate and capture more market share,” he further added.