The ecommerce giant, Flipkart, is in talks with the Mumbai based ticket booking company, BookMyShow for a potential investment. With this move, Flipkart aims at boosting India’s largest eticketing service in a market which has recently seen a rise of the Alibaba backed online payments platform, Paytm.
Since its inception, Flipkart has invested in or bought out over 20 ecommerce companies. By striking a partnership with BookMyShow, Flipkart would offer a wider range of services to its customers. According to sources, Flipkart’s initial plan was to take over the eticketing company entirely, but BookMyShow was not interested in a complete buyout.
If this move goes through, BookMyShow may be valued between $ 500 million to $ 700 million. India’s movie ticketing market alone is expected to be around $ 2.5 billion, with 10% to 15% already being captured by online players, largely by BookMyShow.
BookMyShow is one of the first companies to start an online ticketing platform in India. BookMyShow, which offers online bookings for plays, movies, events and shows, was one of the largest companies in this category till Paytm launched their own service.
However, the online ticketing service took a major hit when the Alibaba backed Paytm entered the playing field with a similar online strategy. Not only that, Alibaba also acquired a majority stake in India’s second largest online ticketing platform, TicketNew. This Chennai based startup is growing quickly and has gained a strong foothold in over 300 cities in India.
Some of the other major eticketing platforms apart from BookMyShow are Insider, MeraEvents, BookMyEvent, TicketGenie and Kyazoonga. These platforms have set themselves apart with unique marketing strategies. Till date, BookMyShow has stayed on the top of the ladder, by raising Rs. 550 crores last year led by Stripes Group in a deal which valued the company at over Rs. 3,500 crores. The funding saw participation from BookMyShow’s existing investors, Network 18, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.