Hospitality chain Oyo, which has over 70,000 rooms and is present in 230 cities across 3 countries, will be investing Rs 100 crore in the state of Andhra Pradesh over the next five years. Founder Ritesh Agarwal made the announcement on Friday at the StartAP awards in Visakhpatnam where he won the Entrepreneur of the year award.
Oyo, which currently has a balance sheet of $250 million will also rapidly expand its room count in the state. From the current 1500 exclusive fully-operated franchise properties, it will expand it to 2,500 by the end of this year and 20,000 rooms in the next five years.
“Visakhapatnam used to be an aspirational place to come during my childhood and it has transformed over the years. I have no question that with the ecosystem support given by the government, the next generation of great companies solving for the modern customer can also come out of here,” Ritesh said.
In Andhra Pradesh, Oyo is currently present in cities such as Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Nellore, Guntur and others.
Ritesh claims that the company has so far created 1000 jobs within AP and targets to create at least 10,000 more jobs in the next three years and is also in discussion with the state to train people and send them to other parts of the country.
Ritesh also had plans of meeting Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu to announce to him that Oyo will be setting up a large back-office facility in AP, both for operations within the state and for the country.
Oyo, which has over 20 million customers who have used the platform so far, has been rapidly expanding its operations. Ritesh claims that 90% of its revenue currently comes from repeat customers.
Having started as just a hotel room aggregator, Oyo today runs various formats including Townhouse and Oyo Home and Silver Key. Most recently, it also forayed into holiday packages with the launch of Oyo Total Holidays, which offers packages across the country and other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Dubai, and Nepal. According to an ET report, Oyo expects this segment to contribute 10% to its total revenues.
Oyo raised $250 million last year in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund. It then also raised $10 million raised from Chinese hotel operator China Lodging Group in September, after which it expanded operations to China.