Zomato to Buy Paytm Entertainment Ticketing Business for More than Rs 2,000 Crore

Zomato, which provides food delivery service through the app, has said that it will buy the movie and events ticketing business of digital payments company Paytm for $244.2 million (about Rs 2,049 crore). Zomato plans to expand its ticketing business. This will increase Zomato’s presence in the online ticketing market for movies and live events. Reliance-invested BookMyShow has a large share in this market.

For the last few years, BookMyShow has been facing tough competition from Paytm’s ticketing platform. zomato Zomato expects that this acquisition can increase the gross order value of its non-core business by three to four times in the next two years. Last year, the restaurant table booking services and events organizing and ticketing unit accounted for about two percent of Zomato’s total revenue. However, it is among the company’s fastest growing segments.

Under the agreement between the two companies, ticketing services will be provided through Paytm’s platform for 12 months before the business is completely shifted to Zomato’s recently launched ‘District’ mobile application. Along with this, about 280 workers of Paytm’s entertainment ticketing business will also be included in Zomato. Paytm had acquired Insider and TicketNew a few years ago for about Rs 2.68 billion to expand its ticketing business. However, Paytm is exiting these segments to focus on its core business of payments and financial services.

Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had ordered the closure of Paytm’s banking unit Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL). This was a big blow to Paytm. Since then, the company’s stock has fallen sharply. In the fourth quarter of the last financial year, the revenue of One 97 Communications, which runs Paytm, fell by 2.6 percent for the first time since listing. The company’s revenue was around $22.7 billion. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) had imposed a penalty of more than Rs 5 crore on PPBL in March. The reason for this was violations in reporting illegal amounts sent through PPBL’s accounts.