With a movie focused loyalty product, Paytm triggers another assault on BookMyShow

Mobile payment major Paytm has introduced movie ticket loyalty programme called Movie Pass, which allows paying subscribers to watch movies at a discounted rate.

Currently, Paytm’s Movie Pass is available in most of the Indian cities. Entrackr checked the payment major blog, which showed price tag of Rs 800 for single pass letting subscriber watch 4 free movies a month.

A couple pass is priced at Rs 1,600, and lets a couple catch 4 movies a month. The users can make the payment through Paytm and get 100 per cent cashback, as per the site.

Though, the concept is said to be similar to one of US-based startup MoviePaas. Interestingly, it offered unlimited movies for just $9.95 a month. It became instant hit among movie goers after the launch leading to 2 million paid subscriber.

However, at the same time it burnt of a lot cash. According to a report, it lost Rs 950 crore in 2017. Later, it limited the offering to 30 movies a month on the same charges.

Online movie ticketing is a two-way battle: Paytm Vs BookMyShow

With Movie Pass, Paytm is exerting more pressure on incumbent BookMyShow. The Ashish Hemrajani-led company doesn’t have any loyalty product because it never faced competition till Paytm’s entry into movie ticketing vertical.

Two years ago, Paytm had begun movie ticket vertical and since then it has come a long way. Registering a little over 2X growth in 2017 Paytm had sold out 52 million movie tickets in 2017. In 2016, it claimed to sell about 26 million tickets.

The Alibaba-backed company has a partnership with 4,000 movie screens across multiplex operators like PVR, INOX, and Cinepolis among various regional chains.

Importantly, BookMyShow did not reveal any figure in 2017 but it claimed to sell over 100 million tickets in 2016.

The fight between the two is turning out to be an expensive affair and both are bleeding profusely. While Paytm doesn’t give any specific burn figure for movie ticketing vertical, BookMyShow had a humble growth of 27 per cent in FY17.

It has recorded Rs 300 crore in the same fiscal. Importantly, it registered almost a double growth before Paytm forayed into the segment.

The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company is eyeing to sell 100 million tickets in 2018 and has identified movie ticketing as the next $1 billion gross transactions vertical, besides travel.