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
ClickHouse Launches ClickHouse Labs With Andy Pavlo as VP of Database Research3.8.2026 16:30:00 EEST | Press release
ClickHouse today announced the launch of ClickHouse Labs, a new research group led by Andy Pavlo, one of the database industry’s most prominent researchers. Dr. Pavlo joins ClickHouse as Vice President of Database Research and will build a team dedicated to advancing the state of the art in database systems. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260803890510/en/ Andy Pavlo, VP of Database Research, ClickHouse Pavlo is an award-winning database researcher and professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Science Department. He is known throughout the database community for his work on autonomous databases, transaction processing, and large-scale data analytics. At ClickHouse, he will bring that expertise to some of the most ambitious and consequential challenges facing modern data systems, as AI reshapes the demands placed on all data-intensive workloads. “At ClickHouse, we are interested in finding new and inno
Lehman Brothers Treasury Considers Sale and Final Wind-Down3.8.2026 16:30:00 EEST | Press release
Lehman Brothers Treasury Co. B.V. in liquidation (“LBT”) today, through its U.S. counsel Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (USA) LLP, announced that LBT is considering a final wind-down of its estate. In connection therewith, LBT has retained Seaport Loan Products LLC as its exclusive placement agent in connection with the potential sale of LBT’s principal remaining asset – a $19.6 billion Class 4A allowed claim against Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (the “LBHI Claim”). LBT expects the sale to occur, if at all, in August 2026. To the extent the LBHI Claim is sold, LBT expects to make a final distribution to the holders of its existing notes and thereafter facilitate the cancellation of those notes and the final wind down of its estate in September 2026. The foregoing is subject to further consents and authorizations and LBT retains sole discretion to abandon or otherwise discontinue any sale process at any time. Accordingly, there can be no assurances that the sale process will be conducte
EuroTeleSites Strengthens Operations One Year into Sitetracker Partnership3.8.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
EuroTeleSites, one of Central and Eastern Europe's leading independent tower companies, today announced the results of its first year in partnership with Sitetracker, the leading global Asset Lifecycle Management platform. One year into the deployment, EuroTeleSites reports meaningful progress in its digital transformation, with measurable improvements in operational efficiency, cross-market transparency, and project coordination across its six-country footprint. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260727009809/en/ EuroTeleSites Strengthens Operations One Year into Sitetracker Partnership Driving Efficiency in a Complex, High-Investment Environment EuroTeleSites invests approximately 25% of its revenue into capital expenditures in 2026, funding the construction and upgrade of tower infrastructure across Central and Eastern European markets. Managing this level of scale and complexity demands robust digital support
Visa to Acquire BioCatch3.8.2026 15:30:00 EEST | Press release
Visa (NYSE: V) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioCatch, a leading provider of behavioral-first, multi-signal fraud intelligence, from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of BioCatch complements Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk and security solutions and is expected to help clients better protect themselves and their customers from the growing threat of account takeovers, scams, money mules and application fraud. Since its inception, BioCatch has developed innovative AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals—such as keystrokes, touch gestures, and device handling—to detect fraud and distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. BioCatch protects 1.8 billion devices and 760 million users around the world, serving more than 350 banking clients in 21 different countries, including more than 100 of the largest bank
U.S. Bank Investment Services enhances investor and client onboarding experience for alternative investments3.8.2026 15:16:00 EEST | Press release
U.S. Bank Investment Services today announced it has gone live with a new client lifecycle management (CLM) platform, providing a comprehensive onboarding solution for alternative investment clients and the investors in their funds. The implementation is a key milestone in Investment Services’ multi-phased technology transformation strategy, aimed at modernizing processes, workflows and reporting across the private funds space. U.S. Bank leverages CLM provider Fenergo and its Fen-X platform. Fen-X automates many of the manual processes traditionally associated with underlying investors and direct client relationships and accelerates account setup while maintaining regulatory requirements. The enhanced onboarding experience provides investors and clients with more transparency throughout the process and enables integration with other solutions providers involved in the investor journey, such as screening and tax reporting. The investor experience has been further enhanced with an invest
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