When EaseMyTrip (EMT)—co-founded by the Pitti brothers: Nishant, Prashant, and Rikant Pitti—went public in 2021, it was an investor favourite. The IPO was massively oversubscribed, and early investors saw returns soar by over 320% within a year. EMT prided itself on being one of the only consistently profitable new-age tech businesses on the Indian exchanges, even earning a place among India’s first 100 unicorns.
However, the tide has turned dramatically. EMT’s market capitalization has since fallen steeply, with more than 70% of its peak value wiped out. Investors are now questioning the direction of the online travel agency (OTA) that once seemed invincible.
The Core Business Bleeds: The Flight Ticket Crisis
Historically, EMT’s revenue was highly concentrated, with nearly 99% of its net revenue coming from flight ticket bookings. This core segment, once its strength, has become its Achilles’ heel.
- Shrinking Sales: Between 2023 and 2025, flight revenues contracted sharply. In Q1FY26 alone, flight revenues fell by 47% compared to the previous year.
- The Competition Crunch: Post-pandemic, dominant rivals like MakeMyTrip, along with challengers like Ixigo and Yatra, aggressively diversified their offerings. They moved beyond tickets, bundling discounts with hotels and holiday packages, thereby offering customers better value and pulling market share away from EMT’s plain-vanilla ticketing model.
Diversification Dilemma: The EMT 2.0 Strategy
To counter the shrinking margins in the flight business, EMT unveiled an aggressive strategy dubbed EMT 2.0, aiming to diversify into higher-margin businesses. The company began a spree of acquisitions, spending over ₹370 crores to buy stakes in companies across seemingly disparate sectors:
- Hotels and Holiday Packages
- EV Manufacturing
- Medical Tourism
- Film Production and Distribution
While ambitious, this diversification campaign created new problems:
- Diluted Focus: The sudden shift and the vaguely related nature of some acquisitions (like film distribution) alienated corporate clients and diluted management’s focus on its core travel strength.
- Collapsing Margins: EMT’s industry-leading EBITDA margin, which peaked at 58% in 2022, collapsed to just 26% by FY25, reflecting the growing expenses and reduced profitability.
Leadership Shifts and Reputation Scares
Adding to the financial turbulence, the company faced challenges on the corporate front:
- Leadership Exit: Co-founder and Managing Director, Prashant Pitti, recently stepped down, leaving Nishant Pitti in charge amid the financial struggles.
- Promoter Shareholding: Declining promoter stake (despite claims of portfolio rebalancing) signaled nervousness to the market.
- Reputation Risk: The company’s name was indirectly linked to the Mahadev betting scam in media reports, which—though not directly implicating EMT—was enough to further erode investor trust during a sensitive period.
- Cash Flow Issues: EMT also struggled with its cash conversion cycle, taking longer to collect money from customers and partners, leading to mounting cash flow problems.
Ultimately, EMT’s story is one of a once-focused and highly efficient platform that, in attempting to do too many things at once, lost its clear identity. While the Pitti brothers remain confident that their long-term bets on hotels and international expansion will pay off, the immediate challenge is regaining investor clarity and trust by refocusing on profitable, synergistic growth.
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