In today’s Finshots, we tell you why EaseMyTrip is amid a financial decline and its stock isn’t sure which way to swing.

The Story

When EaseMyTrip went public in 2021, it was one of those IPOs that everyone wanted a piece of. The buzz was massive. The issue was oversubscribed 160 times, and when the stock finally hit the markets, it listed with a neat 11% gain. But the real magic was what came after. Within a year, anyone who had invested in the IPO was sitting on a 320% return. It was the kind of high that makes investors feel invincible.

But fast forward to today, things are looking very different for the company that once found itself on the prestigious list of India’s first 100 unicorns and prided itself on being the only consistently profitable new-age tech business on the stock exchanges.

For context, just three years ago, when EaseMyTrip (or EMT, as most people call it) was the darling of investors, its market capitalisation had peaked at around ₹11,700 crores. Today, more than 70% of that has been wiped out. The stock has been on a steady decline too, and investors are left wondering — what went wrong?

For starters, sales in EMT’s bread-and-butter business — flight ticket bookings — have taken a nosedive. Now, this is important because historically, EMT earned nearly all of its revenues from flights. In fact, at one point, 99% of its net revenue came from selling flight tickets. But between 2023 and 2025, this segment shrank sharply. The  proof is in the pudding. In Q1FY26 alone, flight revenues fell 47% compared to the same quarter last year, and 40% compared to the previous quarter.

And if you’re wondering what caused this sharp drop, well, competition. A lot of it.

Post-pandemic, rivals like MakeMyTrip, the undisputed leader in India’s OTA (online travel agency) space, as well as newer challengers like Ixigo and Yatra, realised they couldn’t survive on ticketing alone. They expanded into hotels and holiday packages. They bundled discounts. They offered deals that covered more than just flights. And that strategy worked. Customers got better value, and EMT suddenly found itself on the losing side of the bargain.

To counter this, EMT decided it couldn’t just keep slashing ticket prices forever. So, it unveiled a new strategy — EMT 2.0. The idea was to diversify, to expand beyond flights into higher-margin businesses like hotels, holidays, EV manufacturing, medical tourism, even film production and distribution. The plan was ambitious. EMT wanted to buy up to 49% stakes in profitable companies across these sectors and ride on their growth.

But ambition often comes with baggage.

This sudden shift away from its core travel business created a new problem. Corporate clients, who relied on EMT for straightforward ticketing, began to feel alienated. And the spree of acquisitions, worth over ₹370 crores, meant that the company was burning through cash. Worse, many of these businesses were only vaguely related to travel. Tech-enabled hospitality, luxury intercity travel, even film distribution… the dots didn’t quite connect.

The end result was that instead of spreading risk, diversification diluted focus. Expenses piled up, revenues didn’t keep pace, and the management’s attention drifted away from its stronghold as a plain-vanilla OTA.

The financials paint a grim picture too. At its peak in 2022, EMT boasted industry-leading margins — 58% EBITDA and 42% PAT. But by FY25, those numbers had collapsed to 26% and 20%, respectively.

And then came another blow — reputation.

EMT’s name got dragged, albeit indirectly, into the Mahadev betting scam. The company wasn’t directly implicated, but rumours and media reports linking parts of the ecosystem to shady dealings were enough to spook investors. In times of trouble, even the slightest whiff of controversy can erode trust. And this did exactly that.

As if that wasn’t enough, EMT was also struggling with collections. In simple terms, it was taking longer to get money back from customers and partners. Slow payments meant cash flow problems. And when cash flow dries up, it becomes harder to pay bills, invest in growth, or even manage day-to-day operations.

Meanwhile, leadership saw its own shake-up. Prashant Pitti, co-founder and managing director, stepped down recently. His exit came amid declining promoter shareholding and financial turbulence, leaving Nishant Pitti in charge. Now, promoter stake sales are always tricky — when insiders, in this case Nishant Pitti himself, reduce their holdings, investors often see it as a lack of confidence. Even if the Pittis claimed it was portfolio rebalancing, the optics weren’t great.

All these problems eventually showed up where it hurts most: the stock market. The share price kept tumbling, signalling that even those closest to the business weren’t entirely sure of where it was headed.

So maybe, at its heart, this is a story of a company that got carried away. From being an efficient, focused travel platform, EMT tried to become too many things at once. The diversification lacked a clear direction, the acquisitions lacked synergy, and the core business bled in the process.

But here’s the thing. The Pitti brothers don’t think the game is over. They still believe that their big bets will pay off in the long run. EMT’s push into hotels, holiday packages, and even international markets like Dubai shows early signs of growth. These segments are scaling fast, and if they mature, they could help the company regain its footing.

And while thinking long term is a good thing, the problem though, is one of identity. To investors, EMT doesn’t look like a straightforward OTA anymore. It looks like a company experimenting with anything and everything in the hope of boosting margins. And when your story isn’t clear, investors get nervous.

So yeah, the way forward may not be rocket science. EMT might just need to go back to basics — refocus on what it does best, streamline costs, avoid distracting acquisitions, and rebuild the trust it once commanded.

Whether the Pitti brothers can pull that off is anyone’s guess.

Until then…

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