India's emerging hotel OYO plans to dominate the global market by 2023. The company's success might threaten Marriott's global leadership with about 1.3 million rooms globally as of September 2018.
OYO started as a platform that books budget hotels five years ago in the country and, currently, the company claims that it is adding rooms faster than the combined growth of the world's top three hotel chains.
An OYO spokesperson told the CNN that by 2023, they are aiming to be the largest and most preferred hotel chain in the world. The hotels headquarter is in the tech city of Gurgan and the company now owns or franchises hotels around the world including London, Beijing, Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur.
The hotel currently owns 9,000 hotels with 170,000 rooms all over the country and international operations that offers 46,000 rooms in eight countries. The company is backed by high-profile financial firms including SoftBank, which has investments in Uber, WeWork, Slack, and other emerging businesses in India.
Softbank placed large investments amounting to millions of dollars into OYO. Its investments in the company are part of its Vision Fund which was launched with Saudi Arabia. Softbank's finances led the company's latest investments which generated about $1 billion and valued the company at $5 billion.
The funds helped in OYO's global expansion as it rolls out apps and in signing up hotels in the United Kingdom and in Indonesia in 2018 and in the Philippines these early months of 2019. The hotel also offers properties in Malaysia, Nepal, and the United Arab Emirates. The hotel chain is known as one of the top five hospital chains in China that operate with more than 5,000 hotels in 280 cities.
According to OYO's report, its revenue increased by more than three times in its operations in India for the year ended March 2018. The company's operating revenue increased from $26.7 million in 2017 to 58.1 million in 2018. The company projected that they will gain revenue of around $209.5 million for the current fiscal year. According to OYO's statement, its revenue growth has been driven by strong underlying business drivers, with a notable increase in exclusive room supply, two times increase in stayed room nights and consistent margin expansion.
Abhishek Gupta, OYO finance head, said that the increase is primarily contributed by their investments in technology, team building and further investments in newer categories that are entered during the previous year.
