European Online Travel Champion obilet.com Ready for Record Growth
4.8.2021 12:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
obilet.com, Turkey’s premier online travel ticketing platform, is set to enjoy rapid growth in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Having just acquired its arch-rival Biletall, Obilet is forecast to sell more than 20 million tickets in 2021 – up from 8 million in 2020 – and close out the year with $300 million GMV.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210804005055/en/
Having just acquired its arch-rival Biletall, Obilet is forecast to sell more than 20 million tickets in 2021, and close out the year with $300 million GMV. (Photo: Business Wire)
Thanks to its unique offerings and innovative business model, the Istanbul-based travel-tech firm is now poised to expand its geographic reach amid an expected post-Covid global recovery.
SaaS-Powered Business Model
Already known throughout the region for its enormously popular ticket-booking app, Obilet’s primary distinction lies in its SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) powered business model. Obilet, invested in by EarlyBird and EBRD, provides bus operators with a best-in-class Ticket Management System (TMS) featuring 24/7 technical support. The company thereby creates a “lock-in effect” for its business operations on the supply side.
By distributing its portfolio of bus operators using its SaaS to other online ticketing platforms on a revenue-sharing basis, Obilet adds additional revenue streams on top of its lucrative B2C sales.
One of the world’s top-10 platforms for online bus and flight tickets, obilet.com saw remarkable growth in the pre-Covid-19 2016-2019 period, boasting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 77%.
Biletall Buyout Cements Leading Position
Earlier last month (July 12), Obilet cemented its regional position by acquiring Biletall, its chief B2C and B2B competitor, which since the 2000s had played a pioneering role in the digitalization of Turkey’s travel industry. Although Obilet stole the top spot from Biletall in 2016 on the B2C side, Biletall nevertheless retained its leading position at B2B coverage.
The acquisition will give Obilet 100% destination coverage in one of the world’s largest bus markets, and the biggest in Europe. Turkey’s intra-state bus market currently generates some 200 million ticket sales per year, corresponding to roughly $3 billion annually.
Currently, more than 300 bus operators compete in this highly fragmented market, which remains largely unconsolidated despite the 2019 acquisition of the country’s largest domestic bus operator by Flix.
Plans for Expansion in Post-Covid Era
Obilet now is equipped with plug-and-play B2B and SaaS solutions to be offered to both operators and online/offline ticket resellers in neighboring countries, where there is huge revenue potential for the Turkish start-up.
Obilet’s vastly enhanced market share, coupled with rising travel demand in the post-Covid era, is expected to yield 40 million ticket sales in 2022 and a GMV of over $500 million. Company officials even suggest that, as Obilet gradually expands into fresh markets, annual GMV could reach as much as $1 billion within the next few years.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210804005055/en/
Contact information
Ali Yılmaz
external.relations@obilet.com
+90 212 963 03 53
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Incognito Software Systems Launches NEXA, an AI-Enabled Solution for Automated Broadband Operations28.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Incognito Software Systems, a leading global provider of service orchestration, device management, and network intelligence solutions, today introduced NEXA, an AI-driven network intelligence and automation platform that enables broadband service providers to turn operational data into action. NEXA unifies network, device, service, and subscriber data in a single intelligence layer, delivering real-time and predictive insights that help service providers identify issues sooner, better understand the subscriber experience, and take faster, more informed action across their operations. As service providers seek to differentiate beyond connectivity, subscriber experience has become a critical competitive advantage. However, networks have evolved into complex service platforms that span access, edge, customer premises, apps, and third-party systems, making it difficult to detect and resolve issues quickly. NEXA addresses this challenge by combining cross-platform observability with AI-enab
Volante Technologies and Circle advance stablecoin payment and settlement capabilities for financial institutions28.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Volante Technologies, the global leader in Payments as a Service (PaaS), today announced a strategic collaboration with Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL) (“Circle”), a leading internet financial platform company and the issuer of USDC1 through its regulated entities, to help financial institutions integrate stablecoin payment and settlement capabilities into their existing payment operations. Through the collaboration, Volante is bringing USDC workflows into its AI-powered Payments Platform, enabling financial institutions to evaluate how stablecoin activity can operate alongside existing payment rails, operational controls, and on- and off-ramp requirements - without requiring a separate digital asset stack. Volante clients, which include four of the top five global corporate banks and seven of the top 10 U.S. banks, will be able to evaluate key workflows, including minting, redemption, beneficiary wallet registration, funding, notifications, and wallet-to-wallet payment execut
Xsolla Releases The Xsolla Report: Mobile D2C Edition28.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Xsolla, a global commerce company, today released The Xsolla Report: Mobile D2C Edition, a new study examining how direct-to-consumer commerce is performing across mobile games. Drawing on data from more than 800 live Xsolla Web Shops alongside public market and regulatory data, the report shows that D2C has moved past the question of whether it works and into a new phase: studios seeing the strongest results are the ones treating their Web Shop as an operating discipline rather than a one-time build. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260928312597/en/ Graphic: Xsolla Three themes run through the report. First, the gap between a typical Web Shop and a top-performing one is wide, and closing it has little to do with studio size, as indie teams achieve top-tier results comparable to enterprise publishers. Second, more features don’t mean more revenue. A small number of continuously tuned mechanics, particularly loy
Zayed Sustainability Prize Unveils 2027 Finalists Following Record-Breaking Global Entry28.9.2026 15:47:00 EEST | Press release
From AI that can predict pregnancy complications months in advance and robots that navigate water networks, to new technologies restoring degraded soil and heat-resilient corals rebuilding reefs, the Zayed Sustainability Prize has unveiled its 2027 finalists following the most competitive cycle in its history. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260928805335/en/ Members of the Zayed Sustainability Prize Jury gathered in Abu Dhabi to determine the 2027 winners and finalists (Photo: AETOSWire) A record 10,233 submissions from 177 countries were received for the 2027 cycle, a 32% increase year-on-year, reflecting the growing global reach of the UAE’s pioneering award for innovative solutions to global challenges. Following a rigorous evaluation process by the Prize Jury, finalists have been selected across six categories: Health, Food, Energy, Water, Climate Action and Global High Schools. Together, they represent so
ZincFive Expands Nickel-Zinc Technology into In-Rack Backup and AI Dynamic Power Solutions28.9.2026 15:05:00 EEST | Press release
ZincFive®, the leader in nickel-zinc (NiZn) battery-based solutions for immediate power applications, today announced its expansion into in-rack energy storage with the development of Battery Backup Unit (BBU) and AI Dynamic Power Module (DPM) solutions designed to address the evolving energy storage requirements of AI data centers. As AI drives higher rack power densities and increasingly dynamic workloads, data center power architectures are evolving to manage both traditional backup requirements and rapid, repeated changes in power demand. These transient loads can place significant stress on electrical infrastructure, creating a growing need for power solutions closer to the rack that can respond quickly, safely, and reliably. Today’s rack-level technologies often require tradeoffs between energy capacity and dynamic power response. Traditional BBUs are primarily designed to provide backup runtime, while capacitor-based systems offer rapid response but limited energy duration and s
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom