On Monday morning, March 30, 2026, Morpheus Research tweeted four words: “India — something new coming soon.” By the end of the day, every Indian investor knew what that something was. The Hindenburg Research alumni firm that has moved markets in the US, Europe, and Latin America has released a comprehensive short report on MakeMyTrip Limited, India’s dominant online travel agency listed on NASDAQ with a $3.5 billion market cap, alleging anti-competitive practices, accounting manipulation, customer exploitation, and deteriorating fundamentals hidden behind adjusted metrics.
The report, based on interviews with 103 industry experts including former MakeMyTrip employees, hotel chain executives, competitor OTA executives, legal experts, and regulators, is one of the most detailed short-seller investigations of an Indian-origin company since Hindenburg’s 2023 Adani report. Morpheus Research has disclosed a short position in MakeMyTrip shares, meaning it profits if the stock price falls.
MakeMyTrip has not yet responded to the report at the time of publication.
What Morpheus Alleges — The Five-Part Indictment
The report is structured across five distinct areas of alleged misconduct and financial concern, each supported by primary source interviews and documentary evidence.
Part 1 — Defying Regulators and Anti-Competitive Practices
The Competition Commission of India fined MakeMyTrip approximately $26.1 million in October 2022 for anti-competitive and abusive practices, specifically ordering the company to stop its price parity requirements that prohibited hotels from selling rooms cheaper on their own websites or through competing platforms than on MakeMyTrip.
Morpheus alleges that despite MakeMyTrip claiming to have voluntarily addressed these practices, price parity is still widely in force. Former MakeMyTrip employees told Morpheus that price parity is checked on a daily basis and that hotels are held to a parity score. Employees of mid-sized hotel chains including Suba Hotels with 129-plus locations and Pride Hotels with 35 properties told interviewers that price parity clauses are always in their contracts with MakeMyTrip.
An OYO executive told Morpheus that MakeMyTrip had rebranded the practice as a price competitiveness score to avoid the legal terminology while enforcing the same economic outcome through its ranking algorithm. A ClearTrip executive told Morpheus that MakeMyTrip is actively deboosting hotels that refuse to choose exclusively between ClearTrip and MakeMyTrip, ensuring they never surface in search results.
A leader from the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India, a key party in the original CCI case, told Morpheus bluntly: “It is still there. They got away with it.”
Additionally, Morpheus claims to have found evidence of a new undisclosed investigation opened by the Director General of the CCI in March 2024 into whether MakeMyTrip’s price parity agreements constitute a hub-and-spoke conspiracy, a cartel offense under Indian competition law. An Indian legal expert told Morpheus that if proven, such a conspiracy is deemed unlawful without the need to demonstrate anti-competitive effects. This investigation has not been disclosed to shareholders.
Part 2 — Accounting Red Flags
Morpheus identifies three significant accounting concerns it believes materially misrepresent MakeMyTrip’s financial health.
First, MakeMyTrip has not provisioned for the 90 percent of its CCI fine that remains unpaid while the appeal is under review. With a 12 percent annual interest rate accruing on the outstanding balance, Morpheus calculates the total liability could be as high as $34 million, equivalent to approximately 60 percent of MakeMyTrip’s calendar 2025 net income. No provision appears in the company’s accounts.
Second, MakeMyTrip carries a $20 million receivable from Go Air, the insolvent Indian airline that went into liquidation in 2025. Competing OTAs have written off their Go Air exposure entirely. MakeMyTrip has provisioned only half, leaving $10 million in customer refund obligations unaddressed. Morpheus alleges MakeMyTrip is repeating the same pattern with Akasa Air, to which it has significant advances while the startup airline reported losses of approximately $210 million in 2025.
Third, Morpheus alleges MakeMyTrip uses adjusted metrics that inflate results to an extent that dwarfs industry peers. Since 2021, there has been a $212 million cumulative difference between MakeMyTrip’s adjusted profits and its IFRS profits. In the most recent quarter, an IFRS profit of $7.2 million became $51 million after MakeMyTrip’s adjustments, a 7x inflation. By comparison, Booking Holdings and Expedia’s adjustments typically represent 11 percent and 18 percent of their adjusted metrics respectively. MakeMyTrip’s adjustments represent 76 percent of its adjusted profit on a median quarterly basis.
Part 3 — Losing Market Share While Telling Shareholders It Has No Real Competitors
In July 2025, MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Magow stated that the company only theoretically competes because there is no real other OTA player in India. Morpheus’s channel checks tell a different story. Former MakeMyTrip executives told Morpheus the company was blindsided by Booking.com and Agoda, which sparked a price war that drove hotel commissions from approximately 35 percent down to as low as 18 percent at certain hotels.
MakeMyTrip’s wallet share with Marriott Hotels has fallen from 38 percent in 2022 to 31 percent today, while Booking.com and Agoda have grown from 30 percent to approximately 36 to 38 percent. OYO has seen 200 to 300 percent growth from Agoda while MakeMyTrip’s business with OYO has declined 10 to 12 percent over two years.
On the airline side, an Air India executive told Morpheus that MakeMyTrip’s share of OTA business has declined 2 to 5 percent year-over-year while ClearTrip has grown. IndiGo is actively building direct booking to reduce OTA dependence. Trip.com, which sold its stake in MakeMyTrip from 45 percent to 17 percent in June 2025, is now entering India directly and a co-founder has filed to sell $3 million of MakeMyTrip shares.
Part 4 — Bad Actor Hotels and Consumer Safety Failures
Morpheus aggregated reviews from 3,679 budget and lower mid-scale hotel properties across Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai. It found 332 properties with evidence of women’s safety issues, extortion, and fraudulent practices that remain listed on MakeMyTrip’s platform despite the evidence being visible in MakeMyTrip’s own review system.
One example involves a couple who found a hidden camera in a flower vase facing their bed at a hotel booked through MakeMyTrip. After reporting the incident, MakeMyTrip offered a 25 percent refund. The hotel remains listed today with a 4.2 star very good rating.
Morpheus found 219 properties where hotels consistently demand additional payments from customers at check-in, including one Bengaluru hotel with 16 separate reviews documenting extortion-like behaviour. The hotel remains listed. Morpheus also found evidence of unlicensed hotels listed on MakeMyTrip in Goa despite state regulations requiring OTA platforms to list only registered properties.
Part 5 — Dark Patterns and Refund Withholding
Despite MakeMyTrip having self-declared its platform free of dark patterns to Indian regulators in November 2025, Morpheus alleges the company continues to use drip pricing by hiding convenience fees until the payment page, pressure tactics that falsely describe trip insurance as mandatory, and misleading add-on products including the Alternate Trip guarantee that promises a 3X refund for unconfirmed train tickets while burying restrictions in fine print that make it near worthless.
On refunds, Morpheus documents a journalist who received only INR 6 from Goibibo from a refund of INR 1,477 that the airline had confirmed returning to Goibibo. Other customers report MakeMyTrip retaining 60 percent of refunds issued by IndiGo for cancelled flights. TrustPilot’s AI summary of 1,816 reviews averages 1.2 stars and describes considerable problems with refunds including long delays and outright denial.
The Valuation Problem
Even setting aside the allegations entirely, Morpheus notes that MakeMyTrip trades at 18x forward earnings, a 40 percent premium to the peer group average of 13x for global OTAs including Booking Holdings and Expedia, and at 75x trailing earnings, the highest of any major travel platform globally. The premium, Morpheus argues, is unjustified even on the most optimistic reading of MakeMyTrip’s competitive position and financial performance.
What Happens Next
MakeMyTrip is listed on NASDAQ and will be required to respond to the allegations. The CCI appeal hearing scheduled for April 29, 2026 now takes on dramatically heightened significance given the allegations about continued anti-competitive practices. The undisclosed Director General investigation, if confirmed, would represent a material regulatory development that has not been communicated to shareholders.
Morpheus Research’s India debut has targeted the company that controls approximately 50 percent of India’s online travel market. The reverberations for MakeMyTrip’s stock price, its regulatory relationship with the CCI, and its ongoing appeal of the 2022 fine will be felt throughout Indian financial markets and the travel industry in the days and weeks ahead.
This article summarises allegations made in a short-seller research report published by Morpheus Research on March 30, 2026. Morpheus Research holds a short position in MakeMyTrip shares and profits if the stock price declines. All allegations in the report are Morpheus Research’s opinions based on their investigation and have not been independently verified by Business Upturn. MakeMyTrip has not responded to the report at time of publication. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Investors should conduct their own research before making investment decisions.