MakeMyTrip’s monopolistic tendencies meet palace intrigue - Part I

Perplexed. Agitated. Vaibhav Aggarwal just wanted to talk.

Only a few days back, he’d received word that MakeMyTrip (MMT) might be contemplating throwing FabHotels out of the aggregation website. Not because of any fault of his or his company’s. Simply because MMT wanted a deeper relationship with Oyo, one of FabHotels’ competitors. And through that, with SoftBank. And through that, access to money from an investor with billions of dollars who is out to upend industries and business models around the world. A deal with Oyo hinged on the condition that both FabHotels and Treebo Hotels must be kicked out of MMT.

AUTHOR

Ashish K. Mishra

Ashish edits and writes stories at The Ken. Across subjects. In his last assignment, he was a Deputy Editor at Mint, a financial daily published by HT Media. At the paper, he wrote long, deeply reported feature stories. His earlier assignments: Forbes India magazine and The Economic Times. Born in Kolkata. Studied in New Delhi – B.Com from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. Works out of anywhere, where there is a good story to be told.

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