OYO expands international operations with foray in the Philippines

Monday January 21, 2019 , 2 min Read

Delhi-NCR based hospitality startup OYO ventured into international markets in 2016 and now has a presence in over 350 cities across six countries.

Indian hospitality chain OYO is planning to foray into the Philippines market to increase its international footprint, media reports said, quoting sources. Already, the company has on-boarded 10 properties in the Philippines.

The Delhi-NCR-based company aims to expand the number of its properties aggressively in the Philippines to tap into the $5 billion market, media reports said.

The Indian unicorn currently has a presence in over 350 cities across six countries, including India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, the UK, and UAE. Its first international foray was in 2016.

Ritesh Agarwal's OYO just hired a new CTO — OYO CEO, Ritesh Agarwal's

OYO India and South Asia CEO Aditya Ghosh, in an interview to PTI, said the company is working on a roadmap to have a room inventory of 10 lakh over the next two years, as against the existing count of around 4.5 lakh. The company aims to further expand this to 25 lakh rooms by 2023.

This, he said will help OYO become the 'world's top player from the number three now'.

OYO raised $100 million from Indonesian ride-hailing giant Grab in December 2018, according to the company's Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings. In September, it had attained unicorn status with a total commitment of $1 billion. It had then raised $800 million in a round of funding led by SoftBank Investment Advisers through SoftBank Vision Fund, with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital.

OYO has over 13,000 franchised and leased hotels and adds over 64,000 rooms every month. In India, it has over 8,700 leased and franchised hotels and more than 1.64 lakh rooms.

The unicorn claims to have achieved unit-level profitability, and benefits from 90 percent demand coming from direct channels, which improves operating efficiencies. It also claims that over 67 percent of the revenue from its India operations comes from repeat customers.