India’s largest digital wallet payment firm Paytm is in advanced discussion to acquire Chennai headquartered movie ticketing platform TicketNew, according to top sources familiar with the matter. Sources have pegged the deal to be in the range of $30 to $40 million, approximately the same price that Alibaba Pictures paid to acquire TicketNew last year.
Alibaba Pictures is a subsidiary company of Alibaba Group, which is actually the majority stakeholder in Paytm. There is every possibility that Alibaba may be playing the central role in breaking the deal between Paytm and TicketNew.
To make a foray into the ticketing space, Paytm in July last year acquired Insider.in for nearly 35 crore. Inside.in deals with selling online tickets for mostly entertainment related events. With TicketNew’s acquisition, Paytm will further strengthen its presence in the ticketing space.
Both Paytm and TicketNew have refused to comment on the news reports.
It is Paytm vs Bookmyshow.com
Over the years Paytm is seriously looking to diversify its business and in this pursuit it has ventured into several non-core avenues like e-commerce, ticketing, banking and wealth management. While the Gurgaon based company’s foray into e-commerce and banking has managed to hog lot of limelight, its increasing penetration into the ticketing space has relatively went unnoticed.
However, statistics show that Paytm’s penetration into ticketing space has managed to shakeup the current market leader Bookmyshow.com. For instance, the company claims that it clocked 500% growth in volume of tickets sold since May 2016 and is steadily closing the gap on Bookmyshow.com.
Through TicketNew’s acquisition, Paytm can increase further pressure on Bookmyshow as this acquisition will give a major headway to the company in movie ticketing space. TicketNew holds quite a sway in the lucrative Southern territory and this fact may help Paytm to close the gap with its arch rival.