OYO turned around ops to pre-Covid levels: Founder Ritesh Agarwal

Starting January 2021, the chain has achieved 100 per cent recovery of gross profit dollars to pre-COVID levels of January 2020. Also, OYO is seeing signs of recovery across its key leading markets, including India, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Oyo founder and group CEO Ritesh Agarwal shared the details of sharp recovery in the operations of the chain in an email addressed to all employees of the organization referred as OYOpreneur. In the email, which has been assessed by IANS, Agarwal has said that chain's India business is EBITDA positive, and OYO suite of tech products have started showing strong results 'as they fundamentally solve the most critical issues for our partners and create new opportunities for them.'

"We earned the same money in Jan 2021 as we did in Jan 2020. This is a very big achievement and demonstrates demand recovery and results of a revenue-share-only-network. We expect gross profits to get stronger in 2021 as restrictions and lockdowns ease as well as vaccination coverage increases. This is while, there is a lot more work to be done, especially with the Summers coming up - the opportunity is large," Agarwal wrote to OYOpreneurs.

He said that OYO was adding over 11,000 new rooms per month just in India which shows the resilience of our proposition and the value we generate for our partners. "In India, we have already onboarded 65 master franchisees who are further establishing strong relationships in key cities and expanding OYO's presence," he said.

He said that in 2020, OYO made a cultural shift of problem solving with product and technology first and over the last 6 months this approach has demonstrated promising results. In this regard products and services such as OYO Wizard, OYO Yo!, OYO Audit and OYO Secure have all emerged winning platforms building reputation and ensuring efficiency in operations.

"OYO's steady resurgence through the prolonged pandemic is a testament to the company's strong fundamentals and high-value potential," Agarwal said.

Giving a peek into what lies ahead, Agarwal informed employees that in 2021 the strategic focus of the group would be on three geographies, OYO INSEA (India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines), OYO International (USA, UK, China, and others) and OYO Europe.

"As we move into Q2, we have set ourselves some important milestones. OYO Europe to continue to deliver EBITDA positive business. We are already seeing significant uptick in bookings for summer. Q1'2021 revenues have outperformed targets with more than 50+% bookings for the summer season. India has delivered positive EBITDA since Dec 2020 and we should continue to improve EBITDA. SouthEast Asia is on path to recovery and we look to achieve our targets in Q2'2021," he said in the email.

Agarwal also shared organisational changes at the top with employees and said that 2021 is the year of resurgence and OYO will out-achieve its business plans by creating value for hotel partners and homeowners and by delivering great experiences for our customers.