Hospitality

A Deep Dive into OYO 2019: The World's Fastest Growing Hotel Chain

Hospitality

A Deep Dive into OYO 2019: The World's Fastest Growing Hotel Chain

October 2019
58 min read
Seth Borko

Skift Take

Oyo promises a new type of hotel company. It’s an asset-light brand that seeks to connect the global long tail of mom-and-pop hotels through its tech and distribution platform. But can it live up to the hype? Skift Research dives deep into Oyo’s business strategy and financial performance.

Report Overview

We might suggest that Oyo Hotels and Homes is a contender for the most exciting company in hospitality today. If reaching a million rooms and a ten-billion-dollar valuation in just six years doesn’t make you sit up and take notice, then what will?

Oyo is a topic of conversation and controversy in hospitality, tech, and media circles. And much confusion over Oyo and its current business model exists.

In response, we wanted to publish the definitive look into how Oyo operates. To take apart its business model and to figure out what makes the company tick and how it makes (or doesn’t make) money.

Part of the challenge is that Oyo doesn’t look cleanly like any one thing. So how you view it depends on where you sit. Those with a background in distribution might see some similarities to online travel agencies. Those in the tech world will see that it offers a software platform, and of course note that it is backed by the prominent SoftBank Vision Fund. And in the hotel world, Oyo franchises or manages thousands of properties.

So, what is Oyo today: a tech company, an online booking site, or a hotel company? A slight mix of all to be sure, and as such we investigate all three aspects of Oyo’s corporate makeup in this report.

We supplement that qualitative look with a quantitative look into Oyo’s financial performance, geographic expansion, as well as how Oyo stacks up to its global peers in hospitality. We believe that this report presents the most accurate, consistent, and complete look into Oyo’s income statements and key performance indicators available today.

To do this, Skift Research sourced and reviewed hundreds of documents from Oyo dating back to 2012, including its internal audited financial statements, articles of incorporation, fundraising documents, marketing and operational agreements, and franchise disclosure documents. We also collected property- and room-level data for all of the publicly viewable listings on Oyorooms.com, giving us a dataset of 21,000 properties and 380,000 rooms in 20 countries. We’ve combined these resources with Oyo’s public releases and press statement as well as with additional desk research.

The result is that we have pieced together what we believe to be the most thorough look yet into how Oyo runs its business.

What You'll Learn From This Report

  • An in-depth analysis of Oyo’s hospitality, distribution, and tech strategies
  • Oyo financials and KPIs including room nights, gross bookings, revenue, and profits, FY2016-FY2020E
  • Oyo’s geographic mix and how its footprint compares with other chains
  • Oyo’s capitalization table, money raised, and valuation
  • Obstacles that threaten to derail Oyo’s growth