IRCTC Share Price: Shares of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the online ticket booking arm of Indian Railways, rose as much as 5 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 747.65 on the BSE. In the last two trading sessions alone, the stock surged nearly 10.5 per cent as compared to S&P BSE Sensex which moved up 0.1 per cent during this period.
Technically, the stock has rallied over 16 per cent thus far in August and is now within striking distance of its 200-DMA (Daily Moving Average) placed at Rs 748, which is a sign of bullishness. The stock has been trading below the 200-DMA since the end of April 2022.
In a first-of-its-kind move, IRCTC – ticket booking arm of the Indian Railways – is looking to monetise its bank of passenger data while conducting business with private and government companies. The company aims to raise up to Rs 1,000 crore through this exercise. IRCTC has a large bank of data related to every online railway ticket ever generated as it is the country’s only railway ticketing platform.
In the notice inviting applications from consultants, the firm said Indian Railways generated enormous amounts of data, presenting ‘large scope’ for monetisation.
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“Indian Railways desires to monetise the data in customer/vendor applications and internal applications of Indian Railways…for generating revenues and also to enhance facilitation and further improve the services,” it said in the tender floated last month.
“IRCTC wishes to engage a consulting firm to help in identification, design, and development and roll-out of data monetisation opportunities.”
It also added that the applying party needed to study “various Acts or laws including IT Act 2000 and its amendments, User data privacy laws including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and current ‘Personal Data Protection Bill 2018 of India, and accordingly propose the business models for monetisation of Digital Assets”.
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In a recent earnings call, the company’s Chairperson and MD Rajni Hasija said IRCTC was focussing on the non-convenience fee resources more, in addition to the convenience fee resources (for revenue generation) and “one key driver will be… encashing the presence of IRCTC in the Internet and the digital asset monetisation…we have floated the tender for that, so we are hoping for some good results”.
For the quarter ended June 2022 (Q1FY23), IRCTC reported a 196 per cent surge in net profit at Rs 246 crore when compared with Rs 82.50 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Total income grew 251 per cent YoY to Rs 853 crore.
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“Given the beat on revenue front, we increase our top-line estimates by 5.8 per cent / 6.3 per cent for FY23/FY24 as we re-align our assumptions for catering business. We believe ticketing volumes will be keenly eyed in near term as reversal in 2S class is applicable from July,” wrote Jinesh Joshi and Shweta Shekhawat of Prabhudas Lilladher in a note.
“The stock currently trades at 54x our FY24E EPS estimate of Rs12.5. We currently have a HOLD rating on the stock with a TP of Rs 649,” he said.
