IRCTC the flagship ticket booking portal of Indian Railways becomes the highest online grosser of the country with ticket sales worth Rs 20,000 crore . The revenue is double the e -tailer flipkart. The numbers have crossed a whopping $3 billion and has grown by 34 % as the company sold tickets worth 15,000 crore in the same period last year. The website also posted a profit of Rs 130 Crore which has increased from 72 crore the company earned last year. In a statement issued by Public Relation manager of IRCTC Sandeep Dutta ” “Bulk of the sales may be attributed to IRCTC’s rapid growth in e-ticketing which has been due to its interface and setting up of a very robust process. Capacity enhancement was done to book 7,200 tickets per minute as against 2,000 tickets per minute in the existing system.”
The website made a record 13.4 lakh tickets in one single day this April. E ticketing amount to 55% of the total tickets sold by the organization. The portal also showed a 19% increase in the income to 1,414 crore from service charge and selling of Rail Neer , the water service brand from Indian Railway .The portal charges a commission to the ticket sold on the portal and levy’s a sevice charge to its customers. The website has a monopolistic position and attract several brands to advertise on the platform . According to Devangshu Dutta, chief executive at retail consultancy Third Eyesight ” By having a monopolistic position, higher web traffic and sales, IRCTC can attract several brands on its portal, feel experts. “A large part of the Indian population trusts IRCTC and brands across consumer, food and tourism can use it to advertise or sell their products on the portal”.
The portal plans to hit $1 billion mark by FY2020 .
Vaibhav Attree 