You can hardly find a person in today’s world who does not know about OYO. Such has been the expansion and influence of this hospitality company.
The growth of OYO Hotels & Homes has been phenomenal. From starting out in April 2013 to becoming the world’s third-largest and fastest-growing chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes & living spaces, OYO has come a long way.
For those who don’t know, OYO stands for ‘On Your Own’. The platform has now become a synonym for budget-friendly rooms. People know it for its affordable accommodation services. The company has kept on adding feathers to its cap ever since it came into the market.
Its founder Ritesh Agarwal has achieved the feat of being the World’s Youngest Self-made Billionaire after Kylie Jenner in February 2020. Amid all this success, the company had to face many challenges as well.
We all know the success the company has got but very few people know the whole story behind OYO.
The Story behind OYO
Ritesh Agarwal, a college drop-out, always had the intention to start something of his own. At the mere age of 17 years, in 2011, he came up with the idea of Oravel stays which was later re-launched in 2013 as, what we know today, OYO Hotels & Homes.
There are some stories behind the setup of this platform, starting with the early life of Ritesh Agarwal.
The Journey of Ritesh Agarwal
Ritesh Agarwal was born in Rayagada, Orissa. He went to the Sacred Heart School in Rayagada. Right from his school days, Ritesh was inclined towards computers, software and coding.
• In 2009, Ritesh left for Kota with an intention to get an entry in top IIT colleges. Later, he realized Kota wasn’t a place to learn coding and hence gave up on his coding dream. He was left with a lot of spare time, so he started working on a book: ‘Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopaedia of Top 100 Engineering Colleges’. This was a hit.
• At the age of 16, he was among the 240 students who were selected for the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.
• Ritesh Agarwal was among 20 students under the age of 20 years who received the Thiel Fellowship. He received a sum of $100,000 over two years as well as guidance and resources to drop out of college and create a start-up.
Since Ritesh used to travel a lot, amid his trips, he stayed in different hotels. This gave him a realization about the poor hospitality facilities he got at different places.
This motivated him to create an accommodation system where people can get the best rooms, food, staff, and other services in a given budget. He created Oravel Stays in 2011, an aggregator of breakfast and bed stays, inspired by Airbnb’s model.
In 2013, Oravel Stays was relaunched as OYO Hotels & Homes to create India’s largest chain of affordable, standardized hotels.
About OYO’s success
OYO did not become a success overnight. It also had to go through some sequence of events and rough phases. The company’s business was also impacted by the COVID outbreak.
After starting in 2013, OYO went on to acquire rooms in hotels across the country and transformed them into OYO. The company’s sole aim was to make accommodation good and affordable for its people.
OYO Growth
OYO has continuously grown after 2013. It first started its services in India, and today, after 8 years of establishment, it operates in 800 cities in more than 80 countries of the world.
The company started its international operations in 2018 starting with Malaysia. It then entered into the markets of the UK, UAE, Dubai, China, Singapore, Indonesia, and others.
In 2018, the company became a 100% leased & franchised hotel chain. It recorded global stayed room nights of 75 million in 2018, almost six times more than in 2017, and collected a revenue of $211 million. In 2017, 2016, and 2015 it recorded global stayed room nights of 13m, 6m, and 4m respectively.
In 2019, OYO generated a revenue of $951 million and witnessed an increase of 740 million dollars, 4.5 times more than 2018.
As of now, it has acquired more than one million rooms in over 43 thousand hotels. Through its vacation homes business, the company offers travellers and city dwellers access to over 130,000 homes around the world.
OYO now operates under the name ‘OYO Hotels & Homes’.
Shareholding Structure of OYO (2022).
Softbank with 46.62 shares, RA Hospitality Limited with 24.92 shares, Dinesh Ramamurthy with 5.41 shares, Ritesh Agarwal with 8.21 shares, Lightspeed with 2.74 shares, Sequoia with 3.24 shares, A1 Holding Inc with 3.24 shares, Star virtue investment Ltd with 1.81 Shares, Airbnb with 1.36 shares and others with 3.86 shares.
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