Paytm scripts film ticketing plot

Paytm, country’s largest mobile wallet provider, and also has an e-commerce platform, is expanding its online movie ticket business.

This comes four months after it launched the service. The company is already booking around 100,000 tickets a day or three million a month. It plans to take the number to 10 mn a month by the end of this financial year.  With its user base of 130 million, Paytm has set itself aggressive targets for the months ahead.

IN A NUTSHELL
130 million Number of registered users

• Paytm has tie-ups with universities, retail chains such as Birla More stores, Uber, Meru among other companies on its platform.
• Paytm plans to bring in half a billion consumers by 2020
• The company’s investors include Ant Financials (AliPay), Alibaba Group, SAIF Partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank

Source: Paytm

According to the company, in the top 10 cities in the country, online movie ticket booking accounts for 30-35 per cent of the total sales. “We have set aggressive targets to not only increase our market share but to expand the entire pie. Online movie ticketing is only 12-13 per cent of the market size. Paytm will bring offline single-screens on its platform over a period of time. This will take our reach deeper and further, and also aid theatre owners in filling seats,” said Renu Satti, vice-president.

Bringing smaller single-screen theatres into the fold and reaching to more tier-II and tier-III cities, the company said, would soon enable ticket booking for them as well. It had entered into tie-ups with a slew of multiplexes and is now getting into direct collaborations with films, the most recent being Salman Khan’s Sultan.

Currently, Paytm has a little over 2,250 screens for which tickets can be booked online. This number will go up to 3,000 in the coming months. It has tied up with  PVR, Cinepolis, Inox, Wave, Miraj, MovieTime, Gold Cinemas and quite a few other chains and single-screen theatres.