NEW DELHI: PVR Theatres, which had entered into a strategic tie-up with PayTM few days ago, hopes to sell tickets worth Rs 300 crore on PayTM’s e-commerce platforms in the first year, besides selling tickets from ticket counters and other channels.
PVR Joint Managing Director Sanjeev Kumar Bijli told indiantelevision.com in an exclusive chat that this was a strategic business tie–up and therefore refused to comment about the monetary portion of the deal.
The deal was part of PVR’s nationwide foray in the on-line movie ticket segment. There will be a complete 360 effort to publicize the deal on all PVR’s 501 screens. The tie up would be visible on all PVR screens. PayTM is also launching a 360 degree campaign to publiclise the new deal.
PayTM founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, while declining to give any specific figures for the campaign on his company’s deal with PVR told indiantelevision.com that PayTM had spent Rs 1,670 crore on marketing in the previous year. He said that PVR would itself handle the marketing on its screens and PayTM would handle it outside.
Asked how PayTM would be different from the PVR App or bookmyshow.com,Sharma said that there would be less clicks for booking a ticket and there wouldbe cash backs on every booking along with loyalty premiums. At a later stage, snacks during intervial could also come through PayTM, thus reducing huge queues.
He also said that PayTM had 125 million (12.5 crore) registered users andhandled 90 million (9 crore) orders per month and it would benefit from this tie-up, with PVR getting a different clientele than that normally queues online or offline for cinema tickets.
Earlier this week at a press meet during which the tieup was announced,Sharma had described the PVR chain as the most marquee brand to tie-up with PayTM.
Answering a question, Sharma had said that around 3.5 million (35 lakh) tickets are sold online daily in China, and there should be no reason for Indians not following suit.
PVR’s Bijli said the new tie-up also included trailers of the films to be released in two or three months on the PayTM app, thus covering films that were running and those still to be released. This would help the viewer to decide on the film that should be seen.
PVR chief of strategy Kamal Gianchandani said that the aim was to take online bookings up to sixty per cent. At present, around one-third of the buyers take their tickets online. When asked about whether any seats were kept out of the ambit of online bookings, he said these number was less than ten for any last minute bookings and are opened half hour before the show.
PayTM is the first e-commerce site to add cinema booking as a category,Gianchandani said, adding that this would add to the user experience for the ease in booking tickets.
