ixigo posts record Rs 63.4 crore Q2 profit, helped by FreshBus stake sale

Le Travenues Technology, the company that runs the travel booking app ixigo, reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 63.42 crore for the July-September 2026 quarter (Q2 of FY27), its highest quarterly profit so far, in results reported on October 17, 2026. A year earlier it had posted a loss of about Rs 3.5 crore for the same quarter. Revenue from operations rose about 13% to Rs 320.96 crore from Rs 284.23 crore. A large part of the profit came from a one-time gain of about Rs 40.7 crore after ixigo cut its holding in FreshBus, an electric intercity bus start-up, and stopped treating it as an associate company.

ixigo is one of a small group of Indian consumer internet start-ups that went public and now report numbers every quarter. Its results are closely watched by founders and investors as a test of whether a travel app built on budget customers can grow while staying profitable. This quarter's headline profit is the largest the company has reported, but most of it did not come from selling tickets. The FreshBus gain and other income together account for well over half of the Rs 63.42 crore, so the underlying business is smaller than the headline suggests.

The operating picture is mixed. Revenue grew in double digits, and the bus business has become almost as large as flights. Train bookings, the company's original strength, still bring in close to half of revenue. But flight revenue fell from a year earlier as competition squeezed the commission ixigo earns on each ticket, and its adjusted operating profit (EBITDA) was lower than a year ago, according to the results.

The FreshBus deal also shows how start-ups use stakes in other start-ups. ixigo had invested in the electric bus operator as a strategic partner. By selling most of that stake to Twelve Stone LLP, it booked an accounting gain and no longer has to count FreshBus's losses in its own results. FreshBus itself is still growing fast but losing money, which is common for capital-heavy mobility businesses.

Short-term: Investors will look past the record profit to the core numbers: the drop in flight revenue and the lower adjusted EBITDA. Without the FreshBus gain, the quarter's growth came mainly from trains and buses.

Long-term: Hotels are the company's next big bet. The segment is still small and loss-making at the contribution level, so how fast it grows and how quickly it reaches break-even will shape ixigo's profits over the next few years. Its dependence on Indian Railways bookings remains both a strength, because of the volume, and a limit, because the margins are thin.

Who is affected: Shareholders of Le Travenues Technology; travellers who book trains, buses, flights and hotels on ixigo; FreshBus, which loses ixigo as a large shareholder; and founders of consumer start-ups who look to listed peers for a sense of how public markets judge growth and profit.

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