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Johannesburg - Global internet and media company Naspers has injected a further $250m (R3.9bn) in India’s largest online travel company ibibo Group.
The investment is targeted at extending ibibo’s leading market position in the Indian hotels category, said Naspers in a statement this week.
Naspers now owns a 90% stake in the business, according to The Times of India.
India’s ibibo owns integrated online travel properties such as hotel booking engine Goibibo.com and bus ticketing platform redBus.
Goibibo hotel bookings, for example, surpassed 1.6 million room nights during the third quarter, making it the largest hotels booking website in India.
Naspers says ibibo processed more than 6.5 million transactions for the period October to December 2015 and that it generates more than 2.5 times the transaction volumes of its nearest competitor.
“The Indian e-commerce market, and the online travel segment in particular, offers exciting growth prospects for us as a group,” says Naspers Group CEO Bob van Dijk.
Meanwhile, ibibo Group founder and CEO Ashish Kashyap says his company targets solving problems for transportation and accommodation providers.
“Our objective is to solve problems for the transportation and accommodation providers and to connect them to the travellers,” says Kashyap.
China’s leading internet firm Tencent also backs ibibo. Naspers, in turn, has a 34% stake in Tencent.
*Fin24 is part of Media24 which is owned by Naspers.
