Traveloka acquired three online travel agencies (OTAs) earlier this 12 months – Indonesia’s Pegipegi, Vietnam’s Mytour and Philippines’ Travelbook – for $66.8 million. This is an indication of Traveloka’s growing presence within the region and the growing dominance of the OTA sector in Southeast Asia.
Before the acquisition, all three corporations were subsidiaries of the Japanese company Recruit Holdings. In a January statement, Recruit Holdings announced that every one shares within the three corporations were being transferred to Jet Tech Innovation Ventures Pte Ltd, registered in Singapore.
The sole shareholder of this company is Jet Tech Ventures Pte Ltd, which is wholly owned by Traveloka and whose CEO is Ferry Unardi as a director.
Traveloka declined to comment.
Recruit Holdings, which recently acquired job and recruitment platform Glassdoor, cited the competitive OTA market in Southeast Asia as the explanation for the sale.
According to Technology in Asiain 2016, Travelbook reported a loss of roughly $2.5 million and net sales of $701,000, while Mytour reported a loss of roughly $2.1 million and net sales of $5.5 million. Both corporations recorded losses for all three years from 2014 to 2016.
Meanwhile, Pegipegi reported a profit of $158,000 on net sales of roughly $29 million in 2016. However, this figure represents a whopping 94% decline from the previous 12 months.
According to a report by Google and Temasek Holdings, the worth of online travel in Southeast Asia reached $26.6 billion in 2017 and is anticipated to grow to $76.6 billion by 2025. Traveloka, which operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam, is the market leader within the region.
Last 12 months, the corporate raised $350 million from Expedia and one other $150 million from JD.com, East Ventures, Hillhouse Capital and Sequoia Capital. The financing is claimed to have valued the Indonesian company at around $2 billion, Deal Street Asia reported.
Recently, it has been said that the OTA giant goes beyond flight and hotel bookings.
