Vietnam’s leading e-commerce site Tiki purchases online ticketing startup Ticketbox
Vietnam’s leading e-commerce site Tiki purchases online ticketing startup Ticketbox
Vietnam’s leading online marketplace Tiki announced on Tuesday it has acquired Ticketbox, an event and cinema ticketing site, in what is seen as an important step to turn itself into an “all-in-one” e-commerce platform.
Tiki, which aspires to become Vietnam’s Amazon, did not disclose the value of what is only the company’s first-ever acquisition deal.
Tiki founder and chairman Tran Ngoc Thai Son said along with financial investment, the e-commerce company will also utilize its existing assets to support Ticketbox to “not only better serve Vietnamese customers but also promote the national entertainment industry.”
In the other way around, Ticketbox will add the event and cinema ticketing services to Tiki’s current 12 categories of electronics, lifestyle and books.
The deal is in line with Tiki’s recent investment in the entertainment industry, where it has set up a fund to support 100 music videos by local artists in 2019.
According to the Vietnamese e-commerce company, the local event ticketing market will reach US$10 million in 2019, while the cinema ticketing segment is also expected to top $160 million by the end of this year, as people in the country have increased their spending on high-quality entertainment content over the past few years.
According to its plan, Ticketbox will enhance its services with a new function that allows customers to choose seats from prestigious movie theaters nationwide in November, while providing online registration for more than 5,000 events from now to next January.
The number of events is expected to grow two to three times each year.
“Customers can expect differentiated and convenient experiences with fast check-in and safe payment [through the additional services from Ticketbox],” Tiki affirmed in its statement.
Tiki was established in 2010 as a start-up selling books online but has grown to trade a variety of more than 300,000 products.
Tiki currently ranks second in Vietnam’s e-commerce market in terms of traffic, according to figures released in May by the meta-search website iPrice.
Ticketbox was founded in 2013 and backed by Thai media firm Ookbee, the U.S.-based startup incubator 500 Startups and the privately held, global trading and technology firm Susquehanna International, according to the open business database Crunchbase.
