How Paytm challenges BookMyShow through loyalty programmes

After introducing the loyalty card that gave discounts and cash back to moviegoers, payment major Paytm has introduced production house-centric loyalty programme.

First for its kind, Paytm has now been associated with the Bollywood director Karan Johar-owned Dharma Production. The loyalty programme is priced at Rs 499.

According to the Paytm site, the production house loyalty card will give users 25 per cent cashback (up to Rs 300) for its next 5 releases. Besides, it is also offering 10 Uber vouchers of 50 per cent discount up to Rs 50 on rides. Also selected cardholders will get a chance to win a trip to a Dharma film location.

This is the first-of-its-kind offer by a movie ticketing platform.

Earlier in April, Paytm had come up with loyalty programme Moviepass. The concept was reported to be similar to one of US-based startup MoviePaas, which offered unlimited movie tickets for just $9.95 a month. It became an instant hit among moviegoers after the launch leading to 2 million paid subscriber.

Primarily, with Movie Pass, Paytm intends to have an edge over its competitor BookMyShow, which does not run any such programmes.

In 2016, Paytm had started in movie ticket vertical. Since then it claims to have registered a significant growth. It claimed to register over 2X growth selling out 52 million movie tickets in 2017. In 2016, it sold about 26 million tickets. The figure got an addition of 24 million next year.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led firm, which sees movie ticketing vertical as the next $1 billion transactions segment, aims to sell 100 million tickets in 2018.

BookMyShow did not reveal any figure in 2017. According to an estimate, the monthly sales on Bookmyshow is over 10 million tickets. Till date, BookMyShow has raised $128 million. Other than India, it has a presence in Srilanka, Indonesia, New Zealand and UAE.

The contest between the two has resulted in cash burning from both ends. While Paytm doesn’t give any specific burn figure for movie ticketing vertical, BookMyShow had an average growth of 27 per cent in FY17.

Its total expenses touched Rs 473 crore from Rs 248 crore, driven by an almost 4 times increase in advertising expenses to Rs 146.5 crore as compared to Rs 30 crore in FY16. The losses also shot up 138 times to come in at Rs 139 crore.

Currently, Paytm reportedly commands around 30 per cent of market share in movie ticketing business.

While we are yet to get an official response from the company about its growth and market share, the point that strikes notable is phenomenal growth it has shown in its two years of existence. Paytm is trying out schemes that can best appeal to the audience. It has not shied away from it whereas BookMyshow is yet to come up with offerings of its own.