MakeMyTrip (MMYT) Exceeds Market Returns: Some Facts to Consider

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Analysis

Websites tightening client-side checks and blocking scripted clients is not an isolated UX nuisance — it is a structural shift that re-allocates economic surplus from automated scrapers and ad-tech signal harvesters to security and identity middleware. Expect measurable merchant P&L effects within the next 0–3 months (holiday sales window): a modest increase in friction or false positives of 0.5–2% of sessions can translate into a 3–10% drop in e‑commerce revenues for marginal SKUs, while simultaneously reducing fraud chargebacks and bot-driven inventory leakage.

Winners are platform vendors that convert bot detection into a recurring SaaS revenue stream (edge/CDN + WAF + bot mitigation + identity stitching); losers include firms whose monetization depends on unfettered client-side data collection or large-scale web scraping for price intelligence. Second-order beneficiaries include payments and merchant acquirers — lower fraud incidence can add ~25–150 bps to margins for high-volume processors over 6–12 months — and ticketing/secondary marketplaces that see scalper activity decline.

Key risks and catalysts: near-term merchant backlash or hearing loss from false positives can force reversals in policy within weeks, while browser vendor or regulatory interventions (6–24 months) could constrain fingerprinting techniques and shift the market back to server-side solutions. A rapid rollout of standardised privacy-preserving ad primitives or an industry pact around verified first‑party identity would materially blunt the secular winner-take-all outcome for bot-mitigation vendors.

Operationally, the trade is about positioning for a multi-quarter re‑rating of security/edge vendors vs legacy adtech: volatility will spike around earnings and holiday sales prints, creating tactical entry points. Monitor merchant conversion metrics and bot-false-positive rates as real-time signals to add or trim exposure.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long NET (Cloudflare) — 6–12 month horizon. Size: 1–2% of fund notional. Rationale: platform exposure to CDN + WAF + bot mitigation and edge compute; setup for 25–50% upside if enterprise uptake accelerates. Risk: high multiple; downside 20–30% on missed growth — mitigate with a 6–12 month call spread or selling covered calls to finance basis.
• Long CRWD (CrowdStrike) — 6–12 month horizon. Size: 0.75–1.5% notional. Rationale: endpoint+cloud security vendors win from higher demand for automated bot/fraud detection and telemetry; fraud-cost savings for customers should support ASP expansion. Risk/reward: 20–40% upside vs 20% downside if macro IT spend tightens; use laddered entries around earnings and conviction flows.
• Short CRTO (Criteo) or adtech names dependent on third‑party cookies — 3–9 month horizon. Size: 0.5–1% notional (paired). Rationale: accelerated cookie/JS restrictions directly hit addressability; expect revenue risk and multiple compression. Risk: Google/Meta pivot to new identity solutions could re-rate — keep tight stops or pair with longs in security/edge to hedge macro ad spend.
• Pair trade: Long NET + CRWD vs Short CRTO (or similar) — 6–12 months. Size: net market‑neutral weighting (equal notional). Rationale: captures secular shift of value from adtech/scrapers into security/edge/identity. Exit triggers: sustained improvement in merchant conversion rates or public industry standard that restores client-side signal flow.