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Excl: BookMyShow set to unveil online wallet, says 40%-50% annual revenue growth achievable

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Movie and event ticket booking site BookMyShow is soon coming out with its own online wallet for its customers. This would ease the micropayment woes of consumers, many of whom are regular users but have to go through the elaborate online payment process even for small-value ticket buying.

The wallet would act as a parking place for money which can simply be stored (and topped up) and used as per one's requirement. "The technology is ready and the service should come out by the end of this month," Ashish Hemrajani, founder & CEO of BookMyShow, told Techcircle.in.

Interestingly, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has already launched its 'wallet' and with micropayments often required to buy tracks and albums at its digital music store Flyte, the 'wallet' function has become extremely convenient for users.

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Funding

The ticketing site, run by BigTree Entertainment Pvt Ltd, is currently selling 2 million tickets per month. The firm also raised fresh money from Accel Partners last month. The VC firm invested $18 million in total, part of which went to Network18 Media & Investments who sold part of its shares. Network18 remains the single largest stakeholder in BookMyShow with 40 per cent stake.

Talking about the latest deal, Hemrajani said, "As such, we didn't need any more external capital. But certain aspirations and growth plans have to be put in place for which we have raised this latest round."

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He also shared that the sole focus of this new round of funding would be to capture the market in tier II and tier III cities. "We will focus on building mobile tech and the infrastructure catering to consumers in the non-movie ticket booking space in these cities/towns. It's because a lot of regional events take place there and there would be no dearth of local content," he added.

Growth & new revenue streams

BookMyShow also clocked its maiden profit for the year ended March 31, 2012, with its revenues almost doubling (82 per cent growth over FY11) to Rs 29 crore on net profit of Rs 1.4 crore.

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Asked about the sustainability of such high revenue growth in the coming years, Hemrajani said that high double-digit growth would be easily achievable in the coming years.

"We were expecting 40 per cent growth then (in FY12) as well, but we did almost 100 per cent. So 40-50 per cent is what we think can be achieved in the near future as well," he stated.

Talking about the new revenue channels in the coming months, Hemrajani said merchandise selling could be one area where the firm might expand. However, it's still in early stage and the company would wait to find out customer response. If merchandise makes sense for consumers, the firm might consider expanding into that space.

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(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)


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