Traveloka has bought Indonesian rival Pegipegi, two others for US$66.8m

Traveloka has acquired three online travel agencies (OTAs) – Indonesia’s Pegipegi, Vietnam’s Mytour, and the Philippines’ Travelbook – for US$66.8 million earlier this year. It’s a sign of Traveloka’s expanding presence in the region and increasing dominance of the OTA sector at home.

Before the acquisition, all three companies were subsidiaries of Japanese company Recruit Holdings. In a statement from January, Recruit Holdings stated that its entire holdings of the three companies were transferred to Jet Tech Innovation Ventures Pte Ltd, a company registered in Singapore.

According to documents reviewed by Tech in Asia, that company’s sole shareholder is Jet Tech Ventures Pte Ltd, which is wholly owned by Traveloka and counts CEO Ferry Unardi as a director.

Traveloka declined to comment.

Recruit Holdings, which recently acquired the jobs and recruitment platform Glassdoor, cited Southeast Asia’s competitive OTA market as the reason behind the sale.

In 2016, Travelbook reported a loss of approximately US$2.5 million and net sales of US$701,000, while Mytour reported a loss of approximately US$2.1 million and net sales of US$5.5 million. Both companies reported losses for all three years between 2014 to 2016.

Pegipegi, meanwhile, reported profits of US$158,000 from net sales of approximately US$29 million in 2016. That number, however, is a whopping 94 percent decrease compared to the previous year’s.

Traveloka was most recently said to be raising US$400 million in order to move beyond airplane and hotel bookings. Aside from its home country of Indonesia, the travel unicorn is also present in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Update (Dec. 17, 06:30 pm): Added note on Traveloka’s comment.