Online bus ticket booking portal
Redbus has launched its operations in Singapore and Malaysia, marking its first expansion outside of India. The booking service is available via Android and iOS apart from the Web on the domain on redbus.sg.
The service aggregates over 100,000 seats on 5,700 bus routes in Singapore and Malaysia on a daily basis, spanning multiple bus operators.
The launch is part of its new "Redbus global platform" that supports multiple currencies, languages, time-zones, and international payment systems. Tourists from India can make bookings on the service in rupees, while Singapore dollars (SGD) and Malaysian ringgits (MYR) are also accepted.
Prakash Sangam, CEO of Redbus, said that bus travel is largely unorganised and fragmented in many countries, where much of ticket booking happens offline. "With fully scaled out platforms for customers, bus operators and travel agents we have a firm conviction that a fundamentally strong business is possible in online bus ticketing space at a multiple market level." he said.
Redbus.in has registered an 80 percent year-on-year growth, and has a 75 percent market share in India, with mobiles bringing in a 40 percent share in transactions, said Ashish Kashyap, Founder and CEO of ibiboGroup. "Ever since the acquisition in 2013, we have worked hard to build out the new global platform, mobile apps and a solid management and technology team lead by Prakash." he said. The company credits the growth to an increase in the number of transactions from its mobile apps, product innovations, live tracking of buses, and access to exclusive inventory of government-run buses in Uttar Pradesh and North India.
Redbus was acquired by ibiboGroup in June 2013. The group owns portals like hotel and air travel aggregator Goibibo.com, vehicle tracking app YourBus, e-commerce payment aggregator PayU India, Tradus.com, auto marketplace Gaadi.com, and car sharing app ibibo Ryde. The group claims more than 3 million unique transactions on the group's e-commerce properties monthly.