According to an Investor update report released by Network18, BookMyShow has shown a staggering 30 per cent increase in revenues for the first quarter of FY17. The revenues of the ticketing portal rose from Rs. 60 crore in the corresponding quarter last year to Rs. 78 crore in the current year. Network18 is the largest investor in BookMyShow, and hence the company has figured in its annual report.
BookMyShow, owned by Big Tree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is possibly largest entertainment ticketing portal in India. The platform handles the ticketing needs of some of the most coveted events in India, including Sunburn Goa, IPL, Pro Kabaddi, Hardwell, to name a few. This, hence, transforms into unbelievable ticket sales figures, and helps it touch the highest-ever ticket sales mark since its inception.
BookMyShow completed over 30 million ticket sales in Q1 FY17 as compared to 22 million in the previous quarter(Q4 – FY16), registering a 38 per cent growth. The Network18 earnings report doesn’t shed any light on the profit or loss figures of the company.
The report also notes that BookMyShow was visited by an even larger chunk of the population in this quarter(i.e 3 months of Jan-March) as compared to the preceding quarter. Average page views of the website peaked by 43 per cent, amounting to 2.5 billion page views per month as compared to 1.8 billion in Q4 FY16.
BookMyShow successfully managed the online and offline ticket sales for 6 out of 8 teams participating in the Indian Premier League(IPL). The screening of the movie ‘Jungle Book’ in India added another 100 crore in Box Office revenue for the company. It sold over 4.93 million movie tickets and contributed 45 per cent as revenues to the movie collection.
Recent $75 million Funding
After months of speculation, BookMyShow last week raised over $75 million(Rs. 550 crore) led by New York based PE and VC firm Stripes Group. The latest funding round also saw the participation of existing investors, Network 18, Accel Partners, and SAIF Partners.
Network18 continued its aggressive investment into the ticketing platform and in the earning report reveals that it has pumped another Rs. 191 crore to still hold the top investor spot in the company. The company is now valued somewhere in the ballpark of Rs. 3,000 crore. Commenting on the utilization of freshly infused funds, Ashish Hemrajani, CEO and co-founder, BookMyShow, has said that,
We will continue to invest in enhancing user experience through our data analytics engine, and building contextual entertainment content including videos, reviews, discovery.
The ticketing platform now receives over 60 per cent revenue from movie ticketing, as compared to the 40 per cent it mints from sports, live shows and plays. In addition to this, the company has managed to double the number of tickets sold in FY16 to over 100 million, and plans to follow a similar growth trajectory in the future.
Though BMS is the biggest ticketing platform in India, it faces direct competition from the likes of KyaZoonga, MeraEvents, or even Explara. KyaZoonga had recently received an undisclosed investment from chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, Ratan Tata and is eyeing global expansion in the near future.
