Gurugram-headquartered online travel aggregator Yatra has reported a steep fall in its financial performance for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2025. The company’s profit tanked 27.5 per cent, along with a 6.4 per cent fall in revenue, reflecting continued struggles to hold its market position and the bottom line.
PC: Mint
According to the consolidated unaudited financials sourced from the National Stock Exchange, Yatra’s revenue from operations dropped to Rs 100.8 crore in Q1 FY25 from Rs 107.67 crore in the earlier quarter. Such a drop in revenues makes it quite expressively clear that the travel industry has been under the radar of tough times, wavering in demand and competition bearing upon it.
Yatra derives the bulk of its income through air-ticketing, which remains the biggest source of revenue, followed by hotel bookings, packages and other services. Apart from the core operations, Rs 8 crore came in from financial sources, taking the total income to Rs 109 crore for the quarter. Despite such efforts to diversify income streams, the overall financial performance has been underwhelming.
Its expenditure profile comes to show that the company spent about 32% of its total expenditure on employee benefits alone, thereby establishing the importance of human resources in its activity mix. Other key expenses relate to service and payment gateway costs, marketing, legal, and information technology expenses. All these dragged the total expenses of Yatra to Rs 104.75 crore in Q1 FY25 compared to the previous quarter.
Scale continued to erode, with Yatra’s profitability falling to Rs 4.04 crore in Q1 FY25 from Rs 5.57 crore in Q4 FY24, a fall of 27.47%. The company still struggles to hold on to its financial stability. On a unit level, Yatra spent Rs 1.04 to earn a rupee, an indication of inefficiencies in its cost structure.
The market sentiment towards Yatra has been hit as well, with the scrip plunging 4.9 per cent to Rs 132.5 till 12:58 PM on the day of reporting. The total market capitalization of Yatra stands at Rs 2,079 crore, which is about $250 million, based on Fintrackr estimates, thus indicating that the market remains wary of prospects of the company going ahead.
Despite these odds, Yatra still continues to be an important online travel player who has a strong platform and diversified offerings. For this company to get back on its financial feet and restore investor confidence, strategic initiatives should be aimed at improving operational efficiencies, cost rationalization, and new revenue sources. As the business of travel undergoes several changes, so will Yatra’s ability to adapt and innovate in set position among rivals to actually attain, or just sustain the sustainable growth.
