6:06 PM: Signed up over 7500 hotel properties on makemytrip.com. The new hotels page is now available as the default site for customers, and the company is expecting further conversions. In Q3, two domestic partners faced financial issues, which impacted transaction growth in the air segment. With negotiated rates earned better net margins through favorable deals.

6:08 PM: MyTrip Rewards has been performing well,a nd has enrolled over 23000 members in the program, with 1/3rd of members active and engaged on MMYT.

The MMYT Android app is in the final stages of beta testing. The Blackberry application has registered more than 150,000 downloads to date. The mobile website has nearly 60,000 unique visitors each month. The iOS application is also under development,

6:12: Financials being shared

6:15 PM: Internet users in India recently surpassed 121 million users (Ed: where did Deep Kalra get this number from?)

6:16 PM: why are air transactions down when the holiday season should be the highest? The reason is that the travel agents b2b network, we were using air transactions as a low hanging fruit, and our aim was to use it to push our hotels and packages business. In this quarter, we used it to focus on better deals and for higher margins, and we took a conscious call not to push tranasaction growth through B2b channel. Sequentially, it went down 11%. The B2B channel is a low yield channel, and not a preferred channel. We took a strategic call to focus on B2C for air deals.

6:22 PM: The hotel bookings mix is part changing in favor of standalone bookings. Transaction value for every quarter and every season, and the mix would stabilize. It’s not that the packages are growing as well, since we had a robust growth in packages too. ASP was around $400 by the end of this quarter.

6:26 PM: Changes in pricing terms from the suppliers? We’re quite happy to have special arrangements with the suppliers. Their real allergy is to the long tail of agents who are getting a large percentage, where they get a large percentage on international tickets for little work done. The full service carriers, their direct business through the Internet is very low, around the 10% mark or lower. We believe that we will continue to get the deals, as will the large agents.
On the sharp growth in standalone hotel growth – the unbranded properties and two and three star hotels are getting a fair degree of traction. People are seeing more options. It also has to do with customer demands and habits. Earlier people would be double checking on rates and the less discreet hotels would be undercutting. We now do mystery calls and this has reduced. The customers have also become more comfortable with transacting on the web.
6:30 PM: We’ve also added more modes of payment, and for a large transaction, they can make part payment, making it easier for people to use.
6:32 PM: Beyond 7500 hotels, the growth might not be at the same pace. We’ll see between 700-1000 hotels coming in, but we’ll be careful about the hotels we add on.
6:33 PM: Thomas cook is a well established brand name, and the Indian subsidiary is on the block because of the pressures faced by the business in the UK. It remains to be seen how it changes things out there, and it is a distraction for the management and confusion for the customer, and it is an opportunity for holiday players like us.
6:35 PM: Our (air business) margins will contract, and our best estimate is that it will be between 6-6.5% in the long term. It will continue to be growth in transactions, and that we keep getting the performance linked deals, and try to see that it doesn’t have a big impact on our air business.
6:44 PM: Call ends

Segment Details

Air Ticketing:  Revenue from air ticketing increased by 59.9% to $21.6 million for the quarter, up from $13.5 million the same quarter last year. Net revenue margins increased to 9%, from 7.4% a year ago. Gross bookings were up 20.4%.

Hotels and Packages: Revenue from hotels and packages business increased by 45.8% to $31.3 million for the quarter, up from $21.5 million a year ago. Net revenue (revenue less service cost) increased by 81.1% to $5.3 million, from $2.9 million for the quarter ending December 2010. Gross bookings were up 61.7%, net revenue margin increased to 12.1% from 10.8% a year ago.

Notes:
- Other revenue increased to $0.9 million from $0.8 million, primarily due to increase in sale of rail tickets, bus tickets and increase in other miscellaneous income.
- the Corporate booking business is insignificant for MMYT, and their business is mostly B2C leisure travel.
- Personnel Expenses increased to $8 million from $3.9 million year on year.

Download: Press Release | Earnings Call

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- It said that service revenue growth was robust at +20% and customer growth was at +19% in India.

- 56% customers in India were on new higher price plans.

- Data revenue growth remained strong at +46%, led by mobile Internet. 31.2 million data users- grew at 2.3 times YoY.

- Regualatory environment remains uncertain.

- Average Outgoing call price during the quarter was at Rs 0.61 per minute.

3:46 PM: If given a chance would Vodafone participate in fresh spectrum auction? Vodafone said that there were potentially 3 benefits, even though there’s a long way to go before it understands the process. Firstly, more free spectrum would be available following the verdict. Secondly, more spectrum will be available. The Vodafone exec on the call indicated that the company would be interested in bidding for spectrum if given an option and said, “Yes we are interested in more spectrum.We’re also interested in transparent pricing instead of an obscure way to determine pricing.” He further said that the verdict would lead to rationalization in terms of the number of players. “I’d be surprised if it would be the same number of players after the fresh auction.”

4:17 PM: On 3G network in India: Vodafone has 10,700 3G sites with 15% population coverage. The company is working on new pricing plans with focus on daily allowances and snacking. It also intends to introduce more local content and says that growth will depend on greater handset penetration, which at the moment is only at 3%. The company said that it has made good progress but these are early days.

4:18 PM: Concall ends

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Vodafone

There was a major quarterly decline in messaging revenue, which is unusual since the quarter covered the festive season – Messaging revenue was at GBP49 million, a decline of 22.2% compared to last quarter’s revenue of GBP 63 million. The company’s data revenue also declined to GBP 83 million, down 6.7% QoQ. Messaging and data contributed around 13% to the company’s service revenue. The company has stated that it had 31.2 million data customers at the end of 31st December 2011, up 2.3 times year on year. 3G was available to Vodafone customers in 683 towns and cities across 20 circles at the end of the quarter.

- ARPU: Vodafone India’s (blended) ARPU increased quarter on quarter at Rs 173 from Rs 168 in the previous quarter.

- PostPaid: Postpaid ARPU marginally decreased to Rs 738 quarter on quarter, from 742. Prepaid ARPU picked up from Rs 140 to Rs 145 during the quarter.

- Churn: Postpaid churn decreased to 20.7%, while prepaid churn grew to 71.6%. Please keep in mind that Vodafone accounts for churn over four consecutive quarters.

- Minutes of Use: increased to 133.2  billion from 127.77 billion, even though there was a price hike.

Tax Case: On 20 January 2012 the Group received a favourable judgment from the Indian Supreme Court in respect of the tax case regarding the acquisition of Vodafone India Limited in 2007. The Court concluded that Vodafone had no liability to account for withholding tax on its acquisition of interests in Hutchison Essar Limited (now Vodafone India Limited) in 2007.

- Piramal increased share holding: On 4 February 2012 the Group announced that Piramal Healthcare (‘Piramal’) had agreed to purchase approximately 5.5% of the issued equity share capital of Vodafone India Limited (‘VIL’) from ETHL Communications Holdings Limited for a cash consideration of approximately INR 30.1 billion (£385 million) taking Piramal’s total shareholding in VIL to approximately 11%.

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Update:  Flipkart has officially confirmed the acquisition of Letsbuy. and added that it is a combination of cash and equity. Flipkart co-Founder & CEO Sachin Bansal said that the acquisition opportunity came at a very attractive price. The exact amount of the deal has not been disclosed.

In a press statement, Flipkart said that the deal will allow for a faster rate of expansion for both companies – giving the combined entity a much larger share in the consumer electronics market.

The founders of Letsbuy along with their 350+ team will continue to function independently, but will be able to access Flipkart’s technology platform and supply chain capabilities. Letsbuy founder & CEO, Hitesh Dhingra said that the Company had a choice to raise a large round of funding as well, however aligning its business with the largest player in the market made sense.

Update: Our sources suggest that LetsBuy’s valuation was between $20-25 million. Another suggests that it is upwards of $25-30 million, depending on the payout.

Earlier today: Flipkart is set to buy LetsBuy.com, MediaNama had learned from multiple and reliable sources. The terms of the deal are not known, and at the time of filing this report, we’re awaiting a confirmation from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal. The deal is expected to be announced over the next couple of days.

Manish Vij, the co-founder of the Vun Network, and one of the early investors in Letsbuy declined to confirm or deny the development to MediaNama, saying that “LetsBuy is the second largest player in the country, and is the strongest competitior to Flipkart. From a comscore standpoint, it has 2 million unique and over 5 million visitors every month, and is among the top 4 commerce sites in the country. The company has options on raising funds as well, but is considering its options as of now.” Until recently, the rumor was that Flipkart was looking to buy a company in the luxury e-commerce space.

The buzz among the investor community has been that LetsBuy has been looking to raise money for a few months now, and in October 2011, there was a report in VCCircle, stating that that it was close to raising around $40 million from multiple investors including Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners. It has been a little over a year since Letsbuy raised $6 million from Helion Ventures, Accel Partners and Tiger Global. Note that  Flipkart and Letsbuy have common investors in Tiger Global and Accel Partners. LetsBuy was launched in July 2009, and primarily focused on retailing consumer electronics, communications and computer goods, though it expanded its product portfolio to include toys, sports, healthcare, watches and stationary. The company was founded by Hitesh Dhingra and Amanpreet Bajaj.

Flipkart is believed to have recently raised funds: a report in Mint suggested that the company had raised $150 million at a valuation of around $850 million. From what we hear, the LetsBuy acquisition might be a part-stock, part-cash deal. LetsBuy is believed to be doing around Rs 150 crore annually, while Sachin Bansal had told Mint that Flipkart is going to close this fiscal with revenues of Rs 500 crore.

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To us, this acquisition would mark the beginning of a consolidation in the e-commerce space in India, which we’ve heard is struggling for consumer loyalty, but also perhaps give Flipkart a fillip in terms of scale, with two of the relatively larger players combining. To scale, e-commerce businesses would require substantive funds over the next couple of years, and not all companies may be able to raise that kind of funding. It’s going to be a last-man-standing game, and competition will increase particularly with the entry of Amazon.com in India. Size will matter.

Gamiana, an online gaming startup, has picked up series A funding from the Indian Angel Network. The exact amount of funding has not been disclode. however, a press statement from the company states that IAN has invested under a million US dollars in the company. Following this investment, Chetan Sharma of IAN joins Gamiana as a board member.

The company intends to use the funds to increase its customer base, to better the gaming software of their existing games- Jamia Online and Vinashi, and to procure new gaming contracts in the overseas markets. In addition, the company also intends to broaden its geographical presence and says that it’s focusing on countries such as Brazil, Turkey, and the Philippines.

Offerings:

The name ‘Gamiana’, according to the company has been derived from Games+Ahiana (house in Hindi) and means ‘house of games’. The company states that it would “continue to develop real-time apps for the PC, Facebook and mobile platforms including iOS, Android and others”. We could not find any games developed by the company for mobile platforms, at the time of writing this post.

There are two browser based games that it offers: Jamia and Vinashi. While Jamia, which has a Turkish interface, looks like a role-play based game with virtual rewards and tasks, Vinashi appears to be a strategy based game. Jamia requires users to sign up before allowing them to play, and it did not process our registration, at the time of writing this post. Vinashi is not functional yet.

We’re not sure if developing an independent online games platform would actually work in the age of Facebook games. Even leading gaming companies such as Zapak are introducing social games on Facebook.

Related:
- Social Gaming For A Cause: Asvathaa Ties-Up With Sankara Eye Foundation; Angry Brides
- Zapak Launches Cricket Based Social Game Cricville On Facebook

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- The DoT will consult the Law Ministry to decide how to deal with the 19 licenses that were granted to Tata Teleservices. Tata had asked for dual-technology licenses and the government had granted 19 additional GSM licenses. Read more at The Economic Times.

- DoT may keep the 2G auction base price at Rs 12000 for a pan-India 6.2 Mhz license, thus pricing each Mhz at Rs 1,935 crore. Read more at The Deccan Herald.

- Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily said that the impact of the Supreme court’s order on the telecom sector will be temporary. Read more at DNA.

- The Supreme Court has asked the TRAI to give its suggestions on the guidelines formulated by  the Union government for tightening the verification process for mobile phone connections. Read more at MoneyLife.

- The government is spending significant amount of money on video conferencing facilities. Read more at The Hindu Business Line.

- The central Government is set to start consultation process with states on FDI in multi brand retail. Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will meet industry ministers of the southern states in Kerala by February-end. Read more at The Indian Express.

Batelco said that it had expressed an intent to sell for the stake sale, last year and had an understanding with S Tel for the same, given the circumstances surrounding the 2G probe in India over the past 12 months.  It had entered into an agreement with the company in Q4 2011 for the sale.

S Tel holds licenses in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, and the North-East. The Supreme Court order has resulted in cancellation of S Tel’s licenses in all these circles. Till December 2011, S Tel had 3.54 million subscribers out of which only 1.06 million are Active.

This would make Batelco the first foreign company to exit the Indian market after the Supreme Court ruling. Other major investors who have been affected include Telenor, Etisalat and Sistema. Telenor has already threatened to exit if the base price for spectrum is too high or incumbents are allowed to participate in fresh spectrum auction. Telenor has written off NOK 4.1 billion in Indian operations, after the ruling.

Related:
- 2G Verdict Update: Telenor Pushes For Favorable Auctions; Tata Tele To File Review Petition
- 2G License Cancellation Verdict: What The Telcos Are Saying

Following the tie-up, Ybrant will sell ad inventory for media properties owned by Microsoft including  MSN, Windows Live, and Bing in the assigned cities. Besides proprietary media such as Lycos, Gamesville, getMedia in Latin America and several travel websites in Australia, Ybrant Digital claims to partner with global publishers such as Facebook, Google, MSN, Yahoo!, and Viacom, and says that it assists over 140 Ad Agencies including OMD, Carat, MediaCom, Group M, Quasar, Razorfish, Mindshare, Maxus, OmniCom and Oglivy, spread across Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Over the past few years, Ybrant has acquired Australian ad network company Max Interactive, Israeli ad firm Oridian($13.5 million), US-based DW Net Ventures LLC / MediosOne ($4 million), Serbia-based Seenetix for its flagship bulk emailing product VoloMP ($2.2 million) and US- based Pennyweb Inc ($10 million) and Argentina based ad network DreamAd. The company had recently announced its intention to acquire a minority stake in the Israel based Web 3.0.

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