We Spend 100 Crore Annually On Advertising: Prakash Sangam, redBus

Bengaluru-based bus ticketing platform redBus made ticket easy for commuters. The company, which is now a part of the Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip group has globally sold 180-million bus tickets till date and has a customer base of around 20-million people. With plans to expand its bus ticketing business globally, redBus is targeting 35% revenue of this segment from overseas operations over the next 3-4 years.
In interaction with exchange4media Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus shared that the company recorded an overall growth of 38% till Q3.
Their business in Tier II and Tier III market is growing significantly. He feels that the future growth is all going to come from Tier II and Tier III cities.
"Compared to metro cities, redBus is growing much faster in Tier II and below towns, said Sangam. In the calendar year 2019, for the first time, we recorded around 50% of our overall business from Tier II and Tier III towns," highlighted Sangam.
Talking about their advertising spends, Sangam shared that redBus spends 100crores annually to advertise itself. Out of 100 crores, 60-65 crore is dedicated to digital marketing, 35-40 crores go to the traditional marketing channels, especially television. He feels that despite being digital booming in the country, TV is still a very influential medium to connect with the common Indian.
Talking about their business in the international market, Sangam highlighted that redBus is the biggest bus ticketing application globally.
Including India and international operations, we achieved overall annual revenues of approx 600 crores from the bus ticketing vertical, told Sangam.
redBus is currently garnering around 10% of its bus ticketing revenues from five international markets -- Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Peru and Colombia.
Further, the company is focusing on Latin America and Asian countries to boost its user-base globally.
It was in 2015 when the bus ticketing company, redBus, entered in Singapore and Malaysia. Then, it acquired a majority stake in Peru-based bus ticketing platform Busportal in the subsequent year. Later, with this acquisition, the company also forayed in Peru followed by Colombia.
The MakeMyTrip owned bus ticketing service is not just doing wonders on the national and international forum but is also coming up with networks to make the intra-city commute easier. In June 2019, they came up with 'rPool', carpooling and bike pooling service, in three cities- Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. On Thursday, they launched the same service with some moderations in Delhi as well.
With some high-security features, the shared mobility service, rPool allows local commuters to connect over the app and share their car or bike rides, the users are commonly known as ride-gives, the one who owns the vehicle, and ride-takers, the ones who pool the transport. Unlike the other cab services like Ola and Uber, rPool eliminates the role of a driver and is strictly made only for the professionals.
“It uses advanced technology to connect ride givers and ride takers in the fastest and most convenient manner possible. The matching algorithm ensures that ride givers don’t have to deviate or take any detours from their daily work route and ride takers get to travel the maximum distance of their commute as a part of the shared ride," said Sangam.

Also, the number of rides in rPool has been capped to four so that the service can only be accessed by the professionals and doesn't turn into a commercial endeavour.

So that's how the bus ticketing giant is growing at every level!