Paytm inks strategic deal with PVR, invests Rs 120 crore in online movie ticket market

Mobile payments platform Paytm has inked a strategic deal with entertainment company PVR as part of its Rs 120 crore investment in the online movie ticket business. The deal will bring PVR's movie tickets to Paytm's e-commerce platform, with the target of making ticket sales worth Rs 2.5 - 3 billion in the first year itself.

"This is in line with our overall strategy of bringing more payment use cases online," says Vijay Shekhar Kumar, CEO of Paytm. "Customers today are asked to shell out more when they pay in advance digitally. We want to eradicate this practice," he adds.

Starting this month, PVR tickets will be sold and marketed on all Paytm channels, including web and mobile. "Through this deal, we aim to reach out to more consumers and achieve better penetration in micro markets," says Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, Joint MD of PVR.

Paytm is aggresively extending its presence in new verticals. In fact, the current size of the movie ticket market stands at $2 billion in India. While it grows at a rate of 10% annually, the online movie ticket business forms only 15% of the total domestic market, which Paytm intends to double soon. It currently has over 125 million registered users and enjoys about 90 million orders per month.