TBM Staff - Mumbai According to a report in The Hindu Business Line, bus service aggregator redBus is intensifying its focus on South India with new apps and tailored booking preferences for women, who make up over 30% of its users. Following the launch of a Tamil app in April, plans are underway to introduce a Telugu interface for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. This push is notable as South India, alongside Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, is a major market for State road transport corporations.
These moves follow a strong first quarter, with a 20% year-on-year growth in bus bookings on the redBus platform, driven by increased business in South India and a decline in average seat prices.
A Telugu language booking interface will be rolled out soon for customers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus, said the platform has 40 per cent share of bookings in the private bus market in the two States and is also a trusted bus booking partner for State transport department services.
“We expect the healthy growth in Tamil Nadu to continue due to the large number of high-quality bus operators and expansion in fleet and connectivity through new route additions. The Tamil interface has a new customer acquisition rate that is three times higher than the English interface,” he said.
Also with women accounting for 32 per cent of its customers, the MakeMyTrip subsidiary has introduced features to attract more travellers. The feature shows buses that are highly rated by women, number of women travelling alone, women-specific deals and reviews.
“Presently, 32 per cent of travellers booking on redBus are women. And as more women travel by bus, women travellers are growing faster than male passengers by 400 basis points. We see a higher-than-average percentage of women travellers in the East and in the South,” Sangam added.
“Our revenue growth in the bus segment has been range bound between 20 per cent and 25 per cent in the last few quarters. redBus growth has consistently trended higher than market due to greater digitisation of bus inventory leading to more buses available on redBus for online bookings and share shift away from traditional offline modes of booking to online booking,” he added.
The bus transport industry has also seen a rebound post Covid-19 pandemic and is slated to reach a valuation of around INR 1.04 lakh crore by 2026, Internet and Mobile Association of India and Grant Thorton Bharat said in their report in February.
While State road transport operators will have a CAGR of 6.15 per cent, private category will grow at 7.19 per cent, the report said.
