Paytm buys majority stake in ticketing platform Insider.in

India’s largest digital payments startup Paytm has acquired a majority stake in online ticket booking platform Insider.in as it looks to take on the country’s largest events and movie ticket booking service, BookMyShow.

Paytm said the partnership would enable its 218 million registered customers to discover a wide range of events and book them instantly. The financials of the deal or Paytm’s overall holding in Insider.in were not disclosed. “Events discovery and ticket booking is a challenge for customers and organisers alike. We believe that digital discovery and events marketing expertise will increase supply of quality events in India. This is a natural extension for us,” Madhur Deora, chief financial officer, Paytm, said in a statement.

The digital payments company estimates that the market for organised events in India is around Rs 4,000 crore, and online ticketing accounts for just 10 per cent of that. The opportunity for growth in the space is huge, with current market leader BookMyShow already making profits from its operations. Paytm has steadily expanded its movie ticketing presence, with a coverage of 3,500 screens across 550 cities. The company claims it sold 25 million movie tickets in 2016, about a fourth of what BookMyShow did in the same period. While Paytm’s focus has largely been on movie tickets, the deal with Insider.com will help it get into the lucrative events segment as well.

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