Indian mobile subscriber growth does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It is no wonder that most of the services are going mobile. Users now want all information to be available on the web, be it local search, banking, bill payments, searching properties or even advertising.
Now you can do the complete online movie ticket booking directly from your GPRS enabled phone. Whats more you can even select the seats you want all from your mobile phone.
Tagit, a Singapore based m-commerce company, with its development base in India, announced that Mobile users in India will now be able to book movie tickets in all Cinema Halls owned by AdLabs, the country’s largest chain of screens, using a unique solution called Mobile Box Office which enables users to book tickets, make payment and even select seats using their mobile phones!
The service users will have to download an application which guides you through the whole process, right up to blocking your seats. The system runs on GPRS, giving users a seamless and effortless way of navigating content which is being dynamically updated in real time from Adlab’s website. The confirmation of the booking is sent directly to the user’s phone in text form. Thus no more standing in queue, no more multiple trips to the cinema, and no more buying tickets in the black.
From their website, it seems that currently this service is offered to Airtel subscribers only. There is no mention of any service charges that subscribers will have to pay (however, I am sure it will be levied).
I did some research and found that surprisingly there is no service like this available in US. Tagit, maybe first of its kind. If anyone knows about it, please let me know.
Can you think of any services that remain to go mobile in India?
Author: Arun Prabhudesai
Arun Prabhudesai is founder / chief editor at trak.in. He jumped the Entrepreneurship bandwagon in early 2008 after a long 13 year stint in I.T Industry. You can follow him on twitter @trakin or get in touch with him at admin-at-trak-dot-in or 91.9822575676.Related posts:
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sir,
we know that among the burgeoning 300 million mobile subscriber base in India, 38 million(and growing) use or access internet from their mobile phones(by the statistics released by TRAI). fair enough!
but, the question remain where are these 38 million mobile subscribers?
on what basis are we sure that they access mobile internet? is it because so many connections we taken or are there parameters set in place to find out who actually use the service offered by the companies in question?
A sound marketing strategy would be to first identify where this 38 million subscribers are (demographically), identify the age , the behavior(behaviorally targeting that is) etc and only then go ahead launch the product full fledged.
now, how are these companies going to identify this target ?
you want idea on what else can be done over mobile phones? how about downloading of mobile content/applications for free with ads enabled in the content? thats how we are doing it . infact ,we have done enough research to identify potential WAP users in india. we went ahead and launched a alpha version of mklix backed it by zestadz.
let me know what u think?
Sri Vikas,
On to your first point..how many users actually access mobile internet…A very good question to which I have no definitive answer. I had written a post on it sometime back, you may be interested in reading.
Secondly, about geographical distribution: This is where the wireless/ mobile companies like Bharti, Vodafone, reliance and TATA come into picture and thats why anwering to your previous comment I said that you have to be wary about these big players as they have the user base, the demographic information, internet access statistics etc. inshort evrything they need for getting targeted audience. Remember when you fill up the mobile connection form you give out nearly everything to the mobile compay.
Thirdly, mobile content/ application download based on advertising model in not new. Here in US it is mostly to do with mobile games….But yes, in India we are still far way off….It is surely a good idea that could catch up in coming years…
WOuld be interested in hearing your point of view.
This is actually a bit old story now. The PVR chain of cinemas has their mobile application (only on Airtel currently) that allows you to book tickets across any PVR cinema in India (More info at this link – http://tagit.tv/pvr/faqs/faqs.htm). You can even select your seats through the application. It’s really cool…I tried a month back and since then I have been hooked to it. PVR levies a charge of just 20 Rs…the same that they levy through net bookings. And Airtel just charges you for the surf time used on your mobile…no service charges.
Amit,
Thanks for the heads-up, but I got the release just yesterday. I think they must have started in select cities earlier to test out and now they must have gone full fledged….
Anyways good to know that in reality too, the service seems to be pretty appealing..
Wow…that is news to me..
Hey Guys…
Stop Fighting…
Logon to http://www.bookmyshow.com or call 39895050 or point your GPRS mobile device to m.bookmyshow.com
You guys would be astonished… Forget TAGIT….