OYO forms JV with Yahoo to foray into housing rental market in Japan

Country’s largest hotel chain OYO on Friday said it had entered into a joint venture (JV) with Yahoo Japan Corporation to make a foray into the housing rental market in Japan, targeting the young population.
 
Through this entity, OYO will bring its successful housing rental product from India, OYO Living, re-christened as OYO LIFE to Japan, beginning in March this year. The company plans to provide home rental spaces at an affordable price targeting the growing population of Japan. Japanese entrepreneur and former Japan market leader for Handy and Booking.com, Hiro Katsuse, has been appointed as the CEO of the newly formed JV, the company said in a statement.
 
“This new entity will be focused on creating unique living experiences for the Japanese citizens, students, and young professionals, looking for good quality affordable accommodations, starting with our fully managed homes brand - OYO LIFE,” OYO Hotels and Homes CEO and Founder Ritesh Agarwal said. OYO has now over 13,000 franchised or leased hotels and over 6,000 homes in its network.
 
The firm has planned major expansion in Southeast Asia and China and is planning to invest more than $100 million in Indonesia. This would the third biggest country for the hospitality chain after India and China. It is also investing $50 million in Philippines.

 
Within three months the  firm has launched in the first phase itself in 16 cities and witnessed 5X growth. The company is aiming at expanding to 100 cities by the end of year.
 
Launched in October 2018 with a string of over 30 full-inventory — franchised and operated — exclusive hotels and over 1,000 rooms in three cities in Indonesia, OYO Hotels is operating 150 hotels across 16 cities. It is adding on an average 70 hotels every month.
 
"Each and every aspect of our operations in Indonesia is highly localised. This localisation had helped us in customising our offering from the point of view of a traveller in the country and what was lacking from his/her experience earlier when OYO was not around. We intend to invest over $100 million in this high growth market and plan to expand our presence to the top 100 cities in Indonesia," Agarwal had said earlier.
 
At present, the SoftBank Group -acked firm has over 400 employees in the country and plans to more than double that number by the year-end. OYO has managed to create a uniquely Chinese identity for its local Chinese business with the result that we are now present in over 280 cities in China and have over 5000 hotels and over 260,000 rooms.