IbiboGroup acquires YourBus

Mumbai: IbiboGroup, a subsidiary of South African mass media company Naspers Ltd, on Thursday said it has acquired online bus tracking and analytics platform YourBus.in, owned by Lucido SoftLabs Pvt. Ltd.

It did not say how much it paid for the acquisition.

In June 2013, ibiboGroup, the online travel company, had acquired Pilani Soft Labs Pvt. Ltd, which runs bus ticketing website redBus.in.

Ibibo largely focuses on air tickets and hotel bookings. The acquisition of YourBus and redBus gives the company access to customers who do not travel by air.

“IbiboGroup will integrate the YourBus platform with both its existing online travel properties, redBus.in and Goibibo.com,” the company said in a statement.

YourBus was founded by Rajesh Mallipeddi and Satya Padmanabham in 2011.

YourBus is functional in 200 cities and is already integrated with redBus’s mobile and Web applications.

“The acquisition will enable the YourBus team to expand its reach potentially to thousands of buses,” the statement said.

India’s travel market is projected to grow 18% in 2013 to reach $23.2 billion, faster than 2012’s 11% pace, helped by a rise in train fares, fleet expansion by airlines and new supply of hotel rooms, according to travel research firm PhocusWright Inc. released in June 2013. That includes the online travel market, which is poised to log a 27% increase in revenue to touch $8.8 billion, PhocusWright said. The pace of growth is 1 percentage point slower than last year’s. Gross travel bookings will reach $28.8 billion in 2015 as compared to the current $19.6 billion, and online gross bookings are estimated to touch $12.5 billion, up 80% over 2012, said the report.

Ashish Kashyap, chief executive officer (CEO) at ibiboGroup, said that in three years, he wants to grow his company as the largest online travel company offering all travel services. Kashyap said the YourBus portfolio fits well with his group as it solves the problems of both passenger and operators.

“We have addressed the problems of demand side. Going forward, we will be addressing the supply side problems including car rentals, bus operators, hotel companies etc,” he said.

Mallipeddi, the co-founder of YourBus, said his company can potentially take live bus tracking to every bus in India and make it a de facto feature to all bus passengers and operators.

“We will be able to leverage the bigger support and network of redBus to achieve this. We could not think of a better home for YourBus,” Mallipeddi said.