Interview: MakeMyTrip CEO on Keeping Bookers on Smartphones
Skift Take
Rather than working on making it easier for Indian travelers to transition easily between various devices, MakeMyTrip is focusing on keeping consumers on smartphones, and solving the clunkiness of the payment process on mobile. It's a bet that is India-specific, but might be instructive for some other parts of the developing world.
Editor’s Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with online travel CEOs talking about the Future of Travel Booking, and the evolving habits and device preferences of travel consumers. Check out all the interviews as they come out here.
Some travel companies, such as Expedia and Hipmunk, believe the future of travel bookings is in arming travelers with the ability to easily transition between smartphones, tablets and desktops without missing a beat.
Indian online travel agency, MakeMyTrip, a public company that sees about 25% of its hotel bookings completed on smartphones, isn't taking the bait, and is focusing instead on keeping Indian travelers on smartphones.
Skift interviewed MakeMyTrip CEO Deep Kalra, who spoke about booking trends in India and the allure of apps; the Expedia-AirAsia's speed bump in India; what he believes is the looming arrival in force of Booking.com in the country, and what MakeMyTrip got out of its EasyToBook acquisition.
An edited version of the interview follows:
Skift: What trends are you seeing in the way MakeMyTrip customers book their travel, and how might it be the same or different from travelers using other sites elsewhere in India and Asia?
Deep Kalra: I think the big change for us in the last year has really been around mobile becoming such an important channel for us for people not just doing research. For us, to our pleasant surprise, to consummate the transaction online, as well. I'm not quite sure how that compares with other parts [of the world]. I know in China there is probably a lot of research online, but then people call to close the transaction.
Our numbers on mobile are up significantly. I'd say 18 months ago we had hardly any visitors coming through mobile or transactions. And, today that number has changed dramatically. So end of last quarter, June 30, 2014, we had 29% of our unique visitors coming through mobile. We are present on all the app platforms, Android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry and the mobile Web, and this 29% of unique visitors translated into 14-15% of transactions.
Some verticals are very high. The interesting part is if I look at domestic flight transactions, which is still our largest business, around 13% [on mobile]. If I look at domestic standalone hotels, which is a very important line of business for us, it was actually 25% [through mobile]. We are sure that the conversion actually stayed the same. I'll tell you in a minute why that number is so hi
