 "ibiboGroup's latest acquisition makes one thing clear: it's betting big on mobile apps")
New Delhi-based ibiboGroup, on Thursday, announced the acquisition of bus tracking and analytics platform Yourbus.in, owned by Lucido Softlabs Pvt. Ltd, for an undisclosed amount.
The deal marks ibiboGroup’s second acquisition in the past ten months. Last year, the company,a joint venture between South African mass media company Naspers and Chinese investor Tencent, bought homegrown online bus ticketing platform redBus.in for over Rs 600 crore, the _Economic Times_ reports.
Yourbus is already integrated with the redBus and Goibibo.com mobile platforms.
Yourbus, founded in 2011 by BITS-Pilani alumniRajesh Mallipeddi and Satya Padmanabham, gives bus passengers the latest updates about their journeys via GPS location and SMS, such as location and estimated arrival times. Bus operators can use the analytics support to calculate the efficiency and punctuality of their fleets.
On its website,Yourbus said, “With redBus, we want to take Live Bus Tracking to every bus in India and make it a de-facto feature in all buses and to all bus passengers. Inspite of our individual efforts, we realised that we needed a bigger support/network like redBus. We couldn’t think of a better Home for YourBus."
Kashyap told_Hindu Business Line, “The overall bus travel segment is pegged at $3 billion (Rs 18,000 crore) in India, and online contributes about 9 per cent. However, the segment is growing and much of it is attributed to the booking through mobile apps. We are doing 10 times through mobile compared with what we did last year."_Kashyap went on to say that the target customer demographic is users of luxury and semi-luxury buses, such as students, professionals and budget travellers.
ibibo’s other online ventures include payment gateway PayU India and digital marketplace Tradus.com.
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