Flipkart in talks with BookMyShow to buy minority stake

E-commerce giant Flipkart is in talks with Mumbai-based online ticketing platform BookMyShow to become a significant minority shareholder. The move, if it comes through, is likely to boost India's largest e-ticketing service in a market which has seen the rise of Alibaba-backed Paytm.

Amid fierce competition from cash-burning competitors, a sale of minority stake to Flipkart may help BookMyShow revive its slackening sales growth. Flipkart's investment in BookMyShow may also benefit Flipkart's own payments platform Phonepe which it acquired last year.

The online retailer wants to invest fresh capital into BookMyShow (Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd) as well as buy shares from some of its investors, a Livemint report said.

BookMyShow may be valued at $500-700 million if the proposed deal goes through, it said.

Network18, which is owned by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is the single largest shareholder in BookMyShow with a 39 per cent stake.

For the year ended March 2016, the firm posted a profit of Rs 3.1 crore on revenue of Rs248 crore. The last fiscal year, however, sales growth took a hit because of a push by Paytm into movie tickets, it added.

Last week, SoftBank-backed Flipkart said it will invest $500 million in PhonePe to scale up operations of its payments arm. The commitment is in addition to the $75 million infused by Flipkart in PhonePe since the acquisition in 2015, it said.

BookMyShow had raised Rs 550 crore last year led by Stripes Group in a deal which valued it at over Rs 3,500 crore. The funding saw participation from BMS' existing investors - Network 18, Accel Partners, and SAIF Partners.

BookMyShow has an international presence in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, UAE and New Zealand. Founded in Mumbai in 1999 and re-launched in 2007, BMS is now present in over 350 towns and cities across India.

BookMyShow allows users to book tickets for movies, plays, sports and live events through its website, mobile app and mobile site. Last month, BookMyShow became one of the first Indian online brand to participate in the WhatsApp business pilot. As part of this test, BookMyShow has made WhatsApp a default ticket confirmation channel for all its users.