The standalone operational revenues which cover its India business alone account for about Rs 299.5 crore as per documents filed with the registrar of companies and sourced from business research platform Tofler.
Revenues from its online ticket booking services grew faster than the platform at 30% to come in at Rs 230 crore in FY17 from Rs 176.7 crore, in the year-ago period.
However at 30%, the pace of growth for the online ticketing vertical has been slower than FY16 which saw the growth double for the business.
As the fight for market share gets hotter in the online ticketing space, BookMyShow has been facing the heat from competitor Paytm which launched this vertical two years ago. The online payments and commerce platform claimed to have sold over 52 million movie tickets in 2017, clocking over 500% growth in the volume of tickets sold since its launch in May 2016.
While BookMyShow declined to share details on movie ticket sales, experts peg the monthly sales on the platform at over 10 million tickets.
The slowdown in Big Tree Entertainmentâs FY17 growth also comes on the back of an extremely lukewarm year for the movie industry which saw only a handful of films cross the Rs 100 crore revenue mark at the box office, with many big movies failing to attract large audience footfalls to theatres.
To be sure, movie ticketing forms about 60-65% of BookMyShowâs ticketing revenues.
âIn FY18, with the objective to further grow this category, expand the market size and increase penetration for online entertainment ticketing, BookMyShow made numerous strategic and long-term investments in new and existing businesses and territories. These investments, which have already started to yield results, are in line with our sound business strategy and vital for the overall development of the ecosystem we operate in,â a spokesperson for BookMyShow told ET declining to comment on the FY17 financials.
The tussle to maintain its lead in the online entertainment ticketing market has cost BookMyShow in FY17 with total expenses almost doubling to Rs 473 crore from Rs 248 crore driven by an almost 4 times increase in advertising expenses to Rs 146.5 crore as compared to Rs 30 crore in FY16.
This has pushed up losses by a whopping 138 times to come in at Rs 139 crore as compared to a net loss of Rs 1 crore in FY16.
However, while Paytm has made significant inroads into the ticketing business in tier 2 towns and beyond, it hasnât been able to unseat BookMyShowâs leadership position in the metros where average ticket sizes are much larger at about Rs 250.
Industry executives expect BookMyShowâs audio entertainment vertical JukeBox to help buoy its performance in FY18.
With an improved user experience and content-led focus which has seen it claw back market share from Paytm in the key metro markets, analysts forecast BookMyShow to maintain its lead in terms of economics even as they expect Paytm to shore up a larger market share in lower-priced ticket markets.
BookMyShow is present across over 4,500 screens in over 650 cities with Paytm lagging behind only slightly with a presence in about 4,000 screens across 660 cities.