CHENNAI: Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group on Monday announced its first major acquisition in the online entertainment ticketing marketplace outside of China, taking over India’s second largest online ticketing platform -- Chennai-based TicketNew, through group firm Alibaba Pictures. The startup, founded in 2007 by Ramkumar Nammalvar, has a presence in over 300 location across India.
“In India, online movie ticketing is becoming increasingly popular, with increasing penetrations in tier2 and tier3 regions. The strategic partnership between Alibaba Pictures and TicketNew can be mutually beneficial. Given Alibaba Pictures’ operational knowhow and financial resources, the partnership can potentially help strengthen the leadership and market share of TicketNew in the ecommerce ticketing space and enable the firm to capitalize on the burgeoning consumer market in India,” said a joint statement by the companies.
Nammalvar, founder and CEO of TicketNew, who will continue to spearhead the business for TicketNew, added that Alibaba plans to invest to the tune of Rs 120 crores in TicketNew over a period of time.
“This secures the future of our staff and the company for generations to come… The latest phenomenal movie Baahubali-2 has witnessed over 50 percent of our ticket sale in tier2 and tier3 market, while the overall sales stands as the best ever done at TicketNew. While we have established our footprint strongly in southern market, the partnership with Alibaba Pictures will take our service across the country thus emerging as number one player in India,” he pointed out.