Thursday, March 08, 2007

Travolution@ITBPhoCusWright - India vs China

Attention private equity firms: Invest in India, not in China!

That was the message from Ram Badrinathan, senior market analyst, India for PhoCusWright, who spoke just before lunch.

"In China you need 11 licences to business. In India you need a letterhead. In China, TravelSky is the gatekeeper. India is open."

Still not convinced?

Just look at the growth and investment already pouring into the country.

In India, airlines have a 70% to 80% online market penetration (compared with 4% in China).
New carriers have managed to achieve 40% of the marketplace in just two years.

Travolcity is already in India and Expedia is coming soon.

But, it's not all so rosy.

"The challenge will be to go beyond early adopters. The days of picking the low hanging fruit are nearly over", cautioned Badrinathan.

Tricia Holly Davis, chief writer, Travolution

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just to put matters in perspective: Los Angeles private equity and buyout group, Blackstone, is valued at around US$40 billion. It has US$78.7 billion of assets under management. Another US private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, has US$54.5 billion under management and is now raising a US$15 billion leveraged buyout fund in the US.