ixigo strengthens its OTA market position as per VIDEC report: 2nd Largest and Fastest Growing OTA in India with continued market share gains. Bengaluru, 3rd November 2026: ixigo Group has strengthened its position as India's second-largest online travel agency (OTA) by gross booking value (GBV), with an 11% share of the Indian OTA market in FY26, according to VIDEC's India Travel Market Opportunity Study, FY23-FY28. The study pegs the Group's GBV at ₹18,690 crore in FY26, up from ₹14,970 crore in FY25 (~25% YoY growth), with its overall OTA market share increasing from 9.9% to 11%. The findings highlight ixigo Group's continued leadership in OTA rail bookings, growing presence in air travel and strong position in intercity bus bookings. Strengthening leadership and growth in key business verticals According to VIDEC, ixigo Group's share of India's OTA rail market increased to 63.5% in FY26 from 60.4% in FY25. The Group's rail GBV rose to ₹8,280 crore from ₹7,410 crore over the same period, reinforcing its position as the largest player in the segment through ixigo Trains and ConfirmTkt. As per ixigo's recently disclosed Q2 numbers, its market share among OTAs in train bookings has further grown to 64% as of September 2026. These market shares relate specifically to the OTA/B2C rail booking segment, which forms part of the broader Indian rail market. The study reinforces ixigo as the fastest-growing air OTA for the second consecutive year, highlighting its ability to leverage its large rail and bus user base to expand in air travel, with ixigo identified as India's third-largest air OTA. Its share of the OTA air market rose to 8.3% from 6.7% in FY25. Its air GBV increased to ₹7,510 crore from ₹5,650 crore during this period. AbhiBus (ixigo Group's bus business) retained its position as the second-largest player in India's OTA intercity bus segment. As per the study, the Group's market share increased to 15.1% in FY26 from 13.8% in FY25, while its bus GBV rose to ₹2,620 crore from ₹1,800 crore (45% YoY growth) A growing digital travel opportunity The report highlights the role of OTAs in aggregating fragmented bus supply and digitising small and mid-sized private operators, and it expects the online bus booking market to grow at 26%+ over the next two years. According to VIDEC, India's OTA market reached ₹1,70,300 crore in FY26, up from ₹1,51,400 crore in FY25, a growth of 12.4%, providing a growing opportunity for digital travel platforms. The study also points to significant potential in lodging, comprising hotels and alternative accommodation. India's online lodging market is projected to reach ₹81,000 crore by FY28, representing a 23.6% CAGR in rupee terms over FY23-FY28. This expanding market provides a broader industry backdrop to ixigo's presence in hotel bookings. Rajnish Kumar, Co-Founder & Group Co-CEO, ixigo & Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & Group CEO, ixigo, said, "Our growing presence across hotels, rail, air and bus travel reflects the trust travellers place in ixigo Group. We have built deep relationships with users through the ixigo, ConfirmTkt and AbhiBus brands, and our journey on hotels has just gotten started. Our focus remains on leveraging technology and AI to build the best peace of mind apps for travellers." Virendra Jain, Co-founder and CEO, VIDEC, said, "India's OTA market reached ₹1.7 lakh crore in FY26, reflecting the growing role of digital platforms in how travellers discover and book travel. ixigo Group's performance demonstrates its ability to leverage product, technology and a peace-of-mind product stack to leapfrog growth across the segments it operates in. It continues to dominate the rail OTA market, has expanded its share in the intercity bus OTA market and has become India's fastest-growing air OTA. Its ability to grow the air, bus travel & hotels business stands out, while its hotel business offers it further room for growth & diversification."

Will AI agents drive customers away from travel platforms and its impact on ixigo. Consumer-facing AI agent apps have moved from answering travel questions to completing bookings on behalf of users, and online travel aggregator ixigo plans to profit from that shift rather than lose customers to it. In its Q2 FY27 earnings release, ixigo's management said every shift in how people book travel - from desktop to mobile and now AI agents - has "created opportunities for companies willing to adapt". The company is therefore building its own agentic layer. Why this matters: At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, Amazon Pay launched Smart Wallet, which lets AI agents make UPI payments on a user's behalf with consent, within specified spending limits. Agentic payments went live first for flight bookings, with ixigo as a launch partner alongside NPCI. ixigo's competitors are also increasingly adopting AI. MakeMyTrip's AI agent Myra now enables conversational bookings. Expedia and Booking.com were the first travel brands inside ChatGPT. Expedia has also partnered with Perplexity's Comet browser. What risks does AI pose for online travel aggregators? ixigo did not downplay the AI threat. The management warned that every time a user leaves an app to ask an external AI agent for help, "that app risks losing engagement, context and eventually distribution". However, the OTA argues that India is harder terrain for general-purpose agents. Online bookings accounted for about 42.5% of India's total travel gross booking value in FY26. Bus supply spans 7,000-plus private operators and 25-plus state transport corporations. Trains are governed via a regulatory framework. Trains and buses account for over 70% of ixigo's contribution margin. "Our users are also the ones a general-purpose agent is least suited to serve. 94% of our transactions involve travellers from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and for them, post-booking is where trust is won: refunds, cancellations, waitlist prediction, disruption handling, and our assured and alternate travel products. An agent that only issues a ticket does not own any of that," ixigo said. What is ixigo's strategy to navigate the AI shift? ixigo plans to operate on both sides of the shift - as a supply and fulfilment partner inside third-party agents, while offering its own agentic experience via ixigo NEXT, a voice-first layer built on small language models developed in-house. TARA, its AI assistant, already resolves 94% of chat queries and handles 82% of customer calls end-to-end. With models commoditising, management said the advantage lies in "proprietary context, workflows, memory, prediction and closing the loop between intelligence and execution". Over time, "the strongest moat will be organisational adaptability." The caveats AI agents could initially direct bookings towards platforms that are "most cited and easiest to transact with" - potentially favouring larger brands. The economics of agent-driven bookings remain unproven. AI also requires investment. ixigo's technology spend rose 46% year-on-year to Rs 14.3 crore in Q2 FY27, while adjusted EBITDA fell 17% to Rs 23.6 crore. Management warned that benefits will "build over time rather than appear in any single quarter."