Indian Railways' Official Un-Reserved Train Ticketing App Revenue Jumps 260% for SE Railway in Apr-Nov '19

Revenue from the UTS mobile app, an Indian Railways' official android mobile ticketing app to book unreserved train tickets, has registered a 260 per cent jump for South Eastern Railway during the April-December period in the current fiscal, an official said on Thursday.

"SE Railway earnings from UTS mobile have been more than Rs 5.50 crore during April to November as against Rs 1.52 crore during the corresponding period of last fiscal -- registering a growth of about 260 per cent," he said.

During the period under review, 40,46,864 passengers in the four divisions of SE Railway purchased tickets using the UTS app compared to 13,09,629 passengers in the corresponding period a year ago, the official said. The four divisions are Kharagpur, Adra, Chakradharpur and Ranchi.

UTS allows cashless, paperless and queue-free booking of unreserved tickets through smart phones.



It was in 2016 when Indian Railway introduced the facility of booking unreserved suburban tickets on smartphones. Last year in November, Indian Railways rolled out the All-India Unreserved Mobile Ticketing facility, UTS on mobile, nationwide to tackle the hassles of queues at railway stations.The app is developed in-house by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).

UTS mobile app's aim is to promote three C’s -- Cashless transactions (digital payment), Contactless ticketing (no need to physically visit the point of sale) and Customer convenience and experience.

The UTS app also enables a registered user to also buy monthly passes. The commuter has to be within a 5 km range of the source station to be able to buy a ticket through the UTS app.

[With inputs from PTI]

With Over 52 Mn Tickets Sold in 2017, Paytm Becomes India’s Fastest Growing Online Movies & Entertainment Ticketing Platform

Paytm, India’s largest mobile-first financial services platform announced that its entertainment vertical sold over 52 million movie and event tickets in 2017, becoming the country’s fastest-growing entertainment ticketing platform. The company saw an exponential 5x growth as compared to 2016, the year of launch for Paytm’s movie ticketing and event booking platform.

Paytm’s user base and its aggressive addition of multiplex & single screens across 660 cities resulted in this exponential growth. The platform powers online ticketing for 4,000 movie screens, with 1,600 screens from regional chains being added in the last year. The company is aiming to sell over 100 million tickets by end of this year, further expanding its presence in the movie and events ticketing space across the country.

Madhur Deora, Chief Financial Officer and SVP, Paytm said, “After an exceptional 2017, we have had a great start in 2018. Our aim this year is to become market leader in entertainment ticketing category and sell over 100 million tickets across India. We will continue growing the overall ecosystem by adding single-screen cinemas and expanding into smaller cities and towns.”

“We are leveraging the Paytm ecosystem to offer a seamless experience to our users, both online on the Paytm app and offline at the cinemas. Paytm users can pay for their movie tickets and food, parking and transport with a single app. Already, 50% of our movie goers also use Paytm to pay at the cinema, nearby food outlets, parking at the mall or taxi rides. ” Deora added.

Paytm currently contributes 25%-30% towards the opening weekend box office collection of major movies. It has also been working closely with leading production houses supporting them with marketing campaigns and analytics. This has helped partner production houses to refine their marketing strategy to target cinema lovers.

Apoorva Mehta, CEO, Dharma Productions, “Given that e-ticketing is the future of our revenues and online purchase of movie tickets are at an all time high owing to our government’s digitization drive, our partnership with Paytm holds immense significance with respect to our goals. We at Dharma have been working closely with Paytm since Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and each association turns out to be bigger and a better than the previous one. We've started linking sales data back to the marketing of films in a way that has never been done before. We're also looking forward to setting bigger targets and newer trends with the exciting Dharma line-up in 2018-19.”

In March 2016, Paytm launched its movie ticketing platform in partnership with PVR, the leading and most valued multiplex chain in India. In last 2 years, it has also partnered with major multiplex chains like Cinepolis, INOX and Carnival Cinemas to expand its footprint across India.

Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Limited, “The partnership with Paytm as our e-ticketing channel partner for over 20 months has grown from strength to strength. With Paytm becoming a household name in the country, it has helped PVR leverage its demographic presence to acquire new customers tapping their impulse habit of watching movies. In view of the immense digital & social media explosion among millennials, PVR has been able to reach out this increasingly important & growing consumer segment.”

In South India, Paytm has forged exclusive partnerships with leading regional multiplex chains like SPI Cinemas, Suresh Productions, V Celluloid, SVC and Anusri Cinemas, which has helped the company gain market share in the South Indian movie industry. All major national and regional chains are now available on Paytm, with the platform contributing 30% of their overall ticket sales. The company is currently working to onboard more regional theaters with single and multi-screens to bring them online.

Introduced Movie Refunds & Movie Passes for the first time:


Paytm has dramatically broadened the scope of online movie ticket booking in India by adding groundbreaking user-friendly features. It has been the first to launch 100% refund on ticket price upon cancellation for users who may want to book early but are worried that their plans might change. Paytm has also launched Movie Pass subscription, an affordable option for movie fans who like to see movies every weekend. It even hosted exclusive premieres of major movies like Wonder Woman, Thor Ragnarok and Dunkirk before the actual release, giving hardcore fans an opportunity to watch Hollywood blockbusters before anyone else in India. This has led to a surge in consumer interest and brought more loyal audiences to the theatres.

Rudrarup Dutta, SVP and Head of Marketing, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, "As more and more audiences move online to book their movie tickets, Paytm has become one of our most important partners not only for bookings but also for communicating and engaging with consumers. The flexibility and aggression that the ‘Paytm’ team has shown have helped us create many interesting consumer propositions like pre-book, special icons, and customized communication to consumers across the Paytm consumer base getting newer audiences to online ticketing."

“Paytm is the country’s largest payments and commerce platform. This gives us an opportunity to market to their wide consumer base and enable easier transactions. We were one of the first ones to explore partnership with Paytm and are very happy continuing to do so”, says Venky Mysore, CEO, Red Chillies Entertainment.

“Our business philosophy is to provide the best-in-class online and offline experience to our customers while helping cinemas and studios increase their business. We see massive potential in growing online ticket sales for movies across metros, and Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India. In addition, regional movies contribute 35% of our overall sales. We are bullish about regional content and will continue to invest in these markets. We also look forward to increasing our presence by partnering with regional cinemas and production houses.” Deora added.

Emerging as one of the leading Live Entertainment ticketing platforms:


Paytm has also entered live entertainment ticketing and is emerging as one of the leading players in the space. Paytm has successfully ticketed over 8000 events last year and is rapidly expanding its presence in the category. In July 2017, it acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, an events ticketing platform. Paytm and Insider’s events platform now sells India’s largest collection of events across Music, Sports, Comedy and other lifestyle categories. Paytm was the exclusive ticketing partner for matches in recently concluded India home-season where India played Sri Lanka and New Zealand. It was also an exclusive ticketing partner for the leading teams from sporting events like Pro-Kabaddi, ISL and Pro Wrestling. It has been exclusive partner for flagship music events like Bacardi NH7 Weekender and concerts of leading artists: AR Rahman, Arijit Singh and Diljit Dosanjh.

"The events landscape has seen an incredible growth in the last few years. At Paytm, we believe that our ability to reach millions of transacting users will help the organizers to scale rapidly. We look forward to partnering with organizers and taking them to customers across India " Added Deora.

With Over 52 Mn Tickets Sold in 2017, Paytm Becomes India’s Fastest Growing Online Movies & Entertainment Ticketing Platform

Paytm, India’s largest mobile-first financial services platform announced that its entertainment vertical sold over 52 million movie and event tickets in 2017, becoming the country’s fastest-growing entertainment ticketing platform. The company saw an exponential 5x growth as compared to 2016, the year of launch for Paytm’s movie ticketing and event booking platform.

Paytm’s user base and its aggressive addition of multiplex & single screens across 660 cities resulted in this exponential growth. The platform powers online ticketing for 4,000 movie screens, with 1,600 screens from regional chains being added in the last year. The company is aiming to sell over 100 million tickets by end of this year, further expanding its presence in the movie and events ticketing space across the country.

Madhur Deora, Chief Financial Officer and SVP, Paytm said, “After an exceptional 2017, we have had a great start in 2018. Our aim this year is to become market leader in entertainment ticketing category and sell over 100 million tickets across India. We will continue growing the overall ecosystem by adding single-screen cinemas and expanding into smaller cities and towns.”

“We are leveraging the Paytm ecosystem to offer a seamless experience to our users, both online on the Paytm app and offline at the cinemas. Paytm users can pay for their movie tickets and food, parking and transport with a single app. Already, 50% of our movie goers also use Paytm to pay at the cinema, nearby food outlets, parking at the mall or taxi rides. ” Deora added.

Paytm currently contributes 25%-30% towards the opening weekend box office collection of major movies. It has also been working closely with leading production houses supporting them with marketing campaigns and analytics. This has helped partner production houses to refine their marketing strategy to target cinema lovers.

Apoorva Mehta, CEO, Dharma Productions, “Given that e-ticketing is the future of our revenues and online purchase of movie tickets are at an all time high owing to our government’s digitization drive, our partnership with Paytm holds immense significance with respect to our goals. We at Dharma have been working closely with Paytm since Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, and each association turns out to be bigger and a better than the previous one. We've started linking sales data back to the marketing of films in a way that has never been done before. We're also looking forward to setting bigger targets and newer trends with the exciting Dharma line-up in 2018-19.”

In March 2016, Paytm launched its movie ticketing platform in partnership with PVR, the leading and most valued multiplex chain in India. In last 2 years, it has also partnered with major multiplex chains like Cinepolis, INOX and Carnival Cinemas to expand its footprint across India.

Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR Limited, “The partnership with Paytm as our e-ticketing channel partner for over 20 months has grown from strength to strength. With Paytm becoming a household name in the country, it has helped PVR leverage its demographic presence to acquire new customers tapping their impulse habit of watching movies. In view of the immense digital & social media explosion among millennials, PVR has been able to reach out this increasingly important & growing consumer segment.”

In South India, Paytm has forged exclusive partnerships with leading regional multiplex chains like SPI Cinemas, Suresh Productions, V Celluloid, SVC and Anusri Cinemas, which has helped the company gain market share in the South Indian movie industry. All major national and regional chains are now available on Paytm, with the platform contributing 30% of their overall ticket sales. The company is currently working to onboard more regional theaters with single and multi-screens to bring them online.

Introduced Movie Refunds & Movie Passes for the first time:


Paytm has dramatically broadened the scope of online movie ticket booking in India by adding groundbreaking user-friendly features. It has been the first to launch 100% refund on ticket price upon cancellation for users who may want to book early but are worried that their plans might change. Paytm has also launched Movie Pass subscription, an affordable option for movie fans who like to see movies every weekend. It even hosted exclusive premieres of major movies like Wonder Woman, Thor Ragnarok and Dunkirk before the actual release, giving hardcore fans an opportunity to watch Hollywood blockbusters before anyone else in India. This has led to a surge in consumer interest and brought more loyal audiences to the theatres.

Rudrarup Dutta, SVP and Head of Marketing, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, "As more and more audiences move online to book their movie tickets, Paytm has become one of our most important partners not only for bookings but also for communicating and engaging with consumers. The flexibility and aggression that the ‘Paytm’ team has shown have helped us create many interesting consumer propositions like pre-book, special icons, and customized communication to consumers across the Paytm consumer base getting newer audiences to online ticketing."

“Paytm is the country’s largest payments and commerce platform. This gives us an opportunity to market to their wide consumer base and enable easier transactions. We were one of the first ones to explore partnership with Paytm and are very happy continuing to do so”, says Venky Mysore, CEO, Red Chillies Entertainment.

“Our business philosophy is to provide the best-in-class online and offline experience to our customers while helping cinemas and studios increase their business. We see massive potential in growing online ticket sales for movies across metros, and Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India. In addition, regional movies contribute 35% of our overall sales. We are bullish about regional content and will continue to invest in these markets. We also look forward to increasing our presence by partnering with regional cinemas and production houses.” Deora added.

Emerging as one of the leading Live Entertainment ticketing platforms:


Paytm has also entered live entertainment ticketing and is emerging as one of the leading players in the space. Paytm has successfully ticketed over 8000 events last year and is rapidly expanding its presence in the category. In July 2017, it acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, an events ticketing platform. Paytm and Insider’s events platform now sells India’s largest collection of events across Music, Sports, Comedy and other lifestyle categories. Paytm was the exclusive ticketing partner for matches in recently concluded India home-season where India played Sri Lanka and New Zealand. It was also an exclusive ticketing partner for the leading teams from sporting events like Pro-Kabaddi, ISL and Pro Wrestling. It has been exclusive partner for flagship music events like Bacardi NH7 Weekender and concerts of leading artists: AR Rahman, Arijit Singh and Diljit Dosanjh.

"The events landscape has seen an incredible growth in the last few years. At Paytm, we believe that our ability to reach millions of transacting users will help the organizers to scale rapidly. We look forward to partnering with organizers and taking them to customers across India " Added Deora.

PayTM Officially Acquires Insider.in For Around Rs 35 Crores

Finally, all the speculations are over. One of the biggest digital payment startups, PayTM has finally announced the acquisition of Insider.in. The startup has acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, a ticketing platform for about 35 crores. This acquisition will enable hundreds of millions of PayTM customers to discover a wide selection of events and book instantly.

Shreyas Srinivasan, Insider.in founder will continue running the business, while Only Much Louder (OML) founders and brothers Vijay and Ajay Nair will remain stakeholders and members of the advisory board.

Earlier owned by OML, Insider.in is one of the leading ticketing platforms in India for events and properties including for events and properties, including NH7 Weekender, EDC and The Grub Fest. "From the first meeting with Vijay Shekhar and Madhur, we realised that Paytm was a perfect partner for Insider. We are excited to join forces with them and build out the best event discovery and ticketing experience in India,” said OML Founder Vijay Nair.

Following the acquisition, the focus will be on making Insider.in accessible to Paytm users. Commenting on the development, Madhur Deora, Chief Financial Officer and SVP, PayTM said, "Events discovery and ticket booking is a challenge for customers and organisers alike. We believe that digital discovery and events marketing expertise will increase the supply of quality events in India. This is a natural extension for us as we continue to build India’s go-to destination for online movies and events.”

The confirmation of this deal came after two to three months when Vijay Nair met Vijay Shekhar Sharma founder of PayTM to discuss the matter before closing the deal.

“ At Insider, we curate the best events and experiences so users can seamlessly discover the best way to spend their leisure time. Our platform also provides tools, data and analytics to organizers that enable them to conceptualize, market and execute their events more efficiently. Our partnership with Paytm will enable us to reach more organizers and event goers, and exponentially grow this ecosystem in India,” said Shreyas Srinivasan, Founder-CEO, Insider.in.

With the current user base of more than 225 million, Paytm is on a mission to bring half a billion Indians to the mainstream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and recently launched Payment Bank. Paytm is founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and is the Consumer brand of India’s leading mobile internet company One97 Communications. Headquartered in the National Capital Region, India, the company’s investors include Ant Financial (Alipay), Alibaba Group, SoftBank, SAIF Partners and Mediatek.

As per PayTM, India’s organized events industry is currently at Rs. 4,000 Cr, with organized sporting leagues and events accounting for the largest portion of ticket sales. Online ticketing accounts for a mere 10% of the overall volume since customers face hurdles in the form of limited event discovery.

After establishing the country’s fastest growing online movie ticketing service spanning 3500 screens across 550 cities Paytm has been expanding into the event's ticketing and discovery, helping customers discover events on its platform.

Paytm Achieves Over 1 Mn Train Ticket Bookings In A Month, Eye 3x Growth This Financial Year

M-commerce firm, Paytm has announced today that it is booking over 1 million train tickets in a month.It further boosts that it has become India’s largest train tickets booking platform after IRCTC making it a preferred platform for users to plan their journeys and book train, air, bus and hotels instantly.

The company launched online train ticket bookings in partnership with IRCTC in October of 2016 to become an integrated platform for all travel bookings. Currently, 90% of the train ticket bookings on Paytm are done through the mobile platform.

Commenting on the development, Abhishek Rajan, Vice President, Paytm said, “Our partnership with IRCTC is a major leap towards bringing the trusted and convenient Paytm experience to train tickets booking. Emerging as the country’s largest platform in train ticket bookings is a definitive step towards our goal of building the country’s largest travel booking platform.”

In recent months, Paytm has witnessed exponential growth in its travel vertical with more than 10 million tickets sold in FY 2017. This year, the company is aiming to be the country’s largest destination for all travel booking needs. The travel marketplace team is headquartered in Bengaluru and has scaled up to 150+ members in the last 12 months. It is looking to ramp up to 250 in next two-quarters.

In May 2017, Paytm had unveiled its Payments Bank, becoming the third payments bank in the country, after Airtel and India Post.

Niki.ai, BookMyShow Partnership Provides Smart Movie Booking Experience To Its Users

AI startup, Niki.ai has partnered with online entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow. Fulfilled by BookMyShow, Niki users can now search and book movie tickets across the country at their preferred cinema venues, while simply chatting with Niki. The Artificial Intelligence powered chat experience provides easy discovery and a host of options to the customers.

Commenting on the development, Parikshit Dar, Director, BookMyShow said, “BookMyShow has always been keen to partner on initiatives that promote new technologies and we are now excited to take lead in exploring the potential of chatbots in movie ticket bookings in India. With 75% of transactions coming through mobile on BookMyShow, we understand the importance of a ‘mobile first strategy’ and believe that our association with Niki.ai is a step forward in this direction.”

How does it work?
Want to watch a movie today with your office colleagues? But you can only watch after work and for the convenience of everyone, you want to watch it in a theatre near your office. For this you just need to type ‘Show English action movies near MG Road after 8 PM for today’ on Niki app and by applying multiple filters, such as movie name, genre, show timings, theatre location and more, easily in a single text message to Niki to can get your movie ticket booked.

Niki, while using emerging technologies of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, makes the whole movie booking process as simple as talking to a human booking agent since chatbot ‘Niki’ has the capability to understand complex queries.

It understands that users have multiple preferences while booking movie tickets and makes it extremely simple to work around these by presenting the users with options and recommendations that best suits their needs.

“With our vision to provide consumers with the most natural, simple and intelligent mode of transacting online, we have leveraged our technology of artificial intelligence combined with tackling consumer problems to build a one of a kind conversational theatre discovery and ticket booking experience,” said Sachin Jaiswal, CEO, Niki.ai.

Founded in 2015, and funded by Ratan Tata and Unilazer Ventures, Niki.ai envisions to provide one shop for everything commerce. Niki is an AI bot who converses to help its users shop for products and services and makes the whole journey from discovery to transaction fast, convenient and extremely simple. The company provides a simple and easy to use chat interface to shop for products and services. To the businesses, it provides a plug and play technology that can be easily integrated everywhere including operating systems, on messaging platforms messenger, and on the brand’s applications (app and web).

With a 35% month-on-month revenue growth, the company has 50+ partners on board, with much more in the pipeline. On the customer front, the company claims to have more than 400,000 customers using Niki.

The company plans to integrate many more services on its platform. It also plans on being on a lot more platforms like iOS and messaging platforms like Slack.

After Uber,Jugnoo accuses Ola of sabotaging its business

Auto-booking app Jugnoo has also alleged Ola of using "unethical practices to sabotage" its business. Earlier taxi aggregator Uber had dragged Ola to court over similar alleged malpractices.

Jugnoo is a Chandigarh-based auto aggregator that competes directly with Ola, which also has its own auto booking service. It alleges that Ola employees have been creating fake accounts over the last 10 days to book and make cancellations on Jugnoo’s app leading to loss of revenue for the company and also affecting the income of auto-rickshaw drivers.

“Jugnoo accuses Ola of employing unethical practices to sabotage their business and aggravate the drivers who are trying to earn a decent living by plying auto rickshaws,”

"We witnessed this trend almost 10 days back when all of a sudden there was a surge in booking and the cancellation rate was equally high. We started mapping the areas where the bookings were being made from and invariably pointed at places close to Ola's office premise," Jugnoo co-founder and CEO Samar Singla said in a statement.

About 20,000 cancellations through 800 fake accounts have been reported to occur during this period, the statement said.

"We noticed this across three locations Gurgaon, Noida and Mysore where this activity was highly being employed.

We have evidence to support our claims and will be more than happy to furnish the details if required. We are planning to take suitable legal action against Gurgaon, Noida and Mysore where this activity was highly being employed. We have evidence to support our claims and will be more than happy to furnish the details if required. We are planning to take suitable legal action against Gurgaon, Noida and Mysore where this activity was highly being employed. We have evidence to support our claims and will be more than happy to furnish the details if required. We are planning to take suitable legal action against Ola for the same but will refrain from doing so if they cease to do this," Singla said.

This is not the first time Jugnoo has laid into Ola either. In December last year, the company had said that Ola of trying steal their employee database through bribes in a hard hitting blog post. But Jugnoo’s latest accusation seems to imply something quite extraordinary – that Ola employees are furiously ordering Jugnoos en masse while sitting in their offices.

What's your opinion on Ola's practices to sabotage other's business ?

AbhiBus To Raise $10 Million From PE Funds

Hyderabad-based online ticketing platform AbhiBus.com plans to raise $10 million from private equity (PE) players. The startup has appointed Kotak Investment Banking as advisor.

As per reports by Business Standard, Sudhakar Reddy Chirra, founder and chief executive officer, said this would be part of the company's plan to raise a total of $40 million over the next two years from PE funds and strategic investors.

"The $10 million will be the first tranche and we hope to close the deal in the next three or four months," said Chirra. He refused to name the PE funds involved.

Founded in 2007 by Sudhakar Reddy Chirra, with the goal of bringing the inventories of bus operators online, Abhibus.com provides end-to-end software and other value added solutions for the Bus Transport Industry. It has offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. With ticket inventory from over 1500 operators and 15000 routes, the company also provides technology solutions to more than 100 large private bus operators in India, 4 state transport corporations and 2 international operators.

The proposed fund raising plan is to support the company's geographical expansion and to build a brand. The company plans to enter Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh markets and this would support its target of becoming a Rs 500-crore company by FY16. AbhiBus clocked Rs 160 crore in FY14, and has set a target to close the financial year with a revenue of Rs 250 crore in FY15.

If this deal got finalized for Abhibus, it will join the league of other online bus tickets booking companies that managed to attract investors. Abhibus face tough competition from other home-grown online ticketing players such as RedBus,TicketGoose and TravelYaari. In 2013, redBus was sold to Naspers for $100 million and last year, Ticketgoose raised Rs 24 crore in its second round of funding.

IRCTC Started Cash-On-Delivery (CoD) System Rail Ticketing At Your Doorstep

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation aka IRCTC has started a new cash-on-delivery (CoD) rail ticketing service in partnership with BookMyTrain.com, where you can now book a rail ticket online and get it delivered at home where the payment can be made. With this facility IRCTC is targeting those customers who are reluctant to use their credit or debit cards as well as those who don't have net-banking facility.

"One has to just book the ticket online and payments will be made at the time of delivery of tickets," said a senior IRCTC official involved with the project.

This scheme has been launched on pilot basis and the service will be available in more than 200 cities initially. Customers can book a ticket 5 days prior to commencement of journey.

While Rs 40 will be charged for the delivery of each Sleeper Class ticket, Rs 60 will be charged for an AC class ticket.

Noida-based Anduril Technologies through their website and their App - BookMyTrain.com is authorised for providing CoD services.

This is another attempt to move people away from the ticket counters and de-congest the booking windows, the official said.

Travel Portal Musafir.com To Invest Rs 120 Crore In India By 2018

UAE based online travel company Musafir.com is planning to invest Rs 120 crore over the next four years in India as it looks to expand it's presence in the country. Musafir.com was launched in India in October last year. By 2018, the company aspires to be among the top five online travel agencies in India

"We plan to invest Rs 120 crore for expanding our presence in India by 2018. The investments will be mainly for marketing campaigns and enhancement of product," Musafir.com Co-Founder and Managing Director Sachin Gadoya told PTI.

The online travel firm also plans to increase its offices in India. It currently has a office in Mumbai. "We will be opening more offices in India. Our second office will be opened at Gurgaon by March 31, 2015. The other offices will come up in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Pune," Gadoya added.

Right now the company has around 120 people in Mumbai and will be adding to the employees strength.

Apart from strengthening presence in India, the company is looking at Nepal and Sri Lanka. Musafir.Com currently provides access to flights for 3,000 destinations on over 270 airlines besides helping access to 75,000 hotel properties.

Notably, Sachin Tendulkar is also a minority stakeholder in Musafir.com India business. Musafir.com was founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Thani, Sachin Gadoya and Albert Dias in August 2007 and was inaugurated by Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Thani on April 23, 2009 and launched in India in 23 October 2013.

IRCTC Goes Mobile Launched Official Android App for Booking Tickets

Railway ticket booking in India has always been a grueling task. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), which is the official e-ticketing service of the Indian Railways, has finally taken charge of the situation and launched its official Android app. The Android app dubbed as 'IRCTC Connect', will allow users to easily book railway tickets on the go.

The app can be downloaded absolutely free of cost from the Google Play store and requires Android 4.1 and above to function properly. It is 12 MB in size.

IRCTC Connect will allow people to search and book railways tickets from their Smartphones or Tablets. It will even let them check their existing reservations and cancel them from within the app. In order to make sure that no one misses their train, the app has the feature to activate upcoming journey alerts.

In order to allow easing booking, the app retains the passenger details that are added using the app. Unfortunately the app does not retain all the previous details that have been added through the desktop site.

The only big drawback which the app has is that it cannot be accessed between from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. During this time interval, the travelers can only book tickets through the IRCTC desktop website of through physical booking counters. The app currently doesn’t have any option to check the PNR status of an existing booking. It even doesn't allow one to change their profile password. The app’s interface is very user friendly.

IRCTC Goes Mobile Launched Official Android App for Booking Tickets

Railway ticket booking in India has always been a grueling task. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), which is the official e-ticketing service of the Indian Railways, has finally taken charge of the situation and launched its official Android app. The Android app dubbed as 'IRCTC Connect', will allow users to easily book railway tickets on the go.

The app can be downloaded absolutely free of cost from the Google Play store and requires Android 4.1 and above to function properly. It is 12 MB in size.

IRCTC Connect will allow people to search and book railways tickets from their Smartphones or Tablets. It will even let them check their existing reservations and cancel them from within the app. In order to make sure that no one misses their train, the app has the feature to activate upcoming journey alerts.

In order to allow easing booking, the app retains the passenger details that are added using the app. Unfortunately the app does not retain all the previous details that have been added through the desktop site.

The only big drawback which the app has is that it cannot be accessed between from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. During this time interval, the travelers can only book tickets through the IRCTC desktop website of through physical booking counters. The app currently doesn’t have any option to check the PNR status of an existing booking. It even doesn't allow one to change their profile password. The app’s interface is very user friendly.

TravelYaari Claims To Be India's Largest Real Time Bus Tickets Booking Service

Are you a frequent bus traveler but often struggle with getting your tickets and desired seats? Then, this is for you. Travelyaari is an online travel agency which has made travelling by bus an absolutely fun and hazel free ride. The agency prides itself of being the country’s largest real time bus tickets booking service which provides booking at “zero” booking price, which means you will only have to pay your ticket amount and there are no additional charges involved.

The Bangalore based travel agency is a flagship brand of Mantis Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a company which was set up by three industry professionals and IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Prateek Nigam, Aurvind Lama and Parthasarthi Sinha. Travelyaari was a campus startup which was born as a result of numerous hostel and classroom discussions. The main objective behind starting Travelyaari.com was making booking of bus tickets accessible to anyone and everyone at transparent rates and at the same time provide bus travelers with the luxury to choose their own seat in the bus.

Travelyaari began its operations in 2007 and has since then worked very closely on the ground with the bus operators. The online travel agency has helped the bus operators in fully computerizing their booking offices and agency network and this has in return helped Travelyaari in creating a very large pool of 100 percent real time bus tickets inventory all across the country. One thing which makes Travelyaari different from all other online travel agencies is the fact that Travelyaari is not just an ordinary online travel agency but also an enabler of the bus travel industry in India.

The bus travel Industry in India is a very unorganized industry and Travelyaari with its mass computerization of the ground network ensures that its customers get the most possible and accurate real time update about seat availability and price while booking through the online travel agency.

To makes things easier and faster, the online travel agency also has its own Android app. The mobile app provides us with a variety of options like Deluxe, Volvo, Express, and Mercedes Benz etc. to choose from. The app also provides us with the luxury to view booking and cancel tickets from within the app. You can even call the customer care executive from within the app. The app can be downloadedabsolutely free of cost from the Google Play Store.

TravelYaari Claims To Be India's Largest Real Time Bus Tickets Booking Service

Are you a frequent bus traveler but often struggle with getting your tickets and desired seats? Then, this is for you. Travelyaari is an online travel agency which has made travelling by bus an absolutely fun and hazel free ride. The agency prides itself of being the country’s largest real time bus tickets booking service which provides booking at “zero” booking price, which means you will only have to pay your ticket amount and there are no additional charges involved.

The Bangalore based travel agency is a flagship brand of Mantis Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a company which was set up by three industry professionals and IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Prateek Nigam, Aurvind Lama and Parthasarthi Sinha. Travelyaari was a campus startup which was born as a result of numerous hostel and classroom discussions. The main objective behind starting Travelyaari.com was making booking of bus tickets accessible to anyone and everyone at transparent rates and at the same time provide bus travelers with the luxury to choose their own seat in the bus.

Travelyaari began its operations in 2007 and has since then worked very closely on the ground with the bus operators. The online travel agency has helped the bus operators in fully computerizing their booking offices and agency network and this has in return helped Travelyaari in creating a very large pool of 100 percent real time bus tickets inventory all across the country. One thing which makes Travelyaari different from all other online travel agencies is the fact that Travelyaari is not just an ordinary online travel agency but also an enabler of the bus travel industry in India.

The bus travel Industry in India is a very unorganized industry and Travelyaari with its mass computerization of the ground network ensures that its customers get the most possible and accurate real time update about seat availability and price while booking through the online travel agency.

To makes things easier and faster, the online travel agency also has its own Android app. The mobile app provides us with a variety of options like Deluxe, Volvo, Express, and Mercedes Benz etc. to choose from. The app also provides us with the luxury to view booking and cancel tickets from within the app. You can even call the customer care executive from within the app. The app can be downloadedabsolutely free of cost from the Google Play Store.

Track Your Waitlisted PNR Tickets With MyPNRAlerts

Vishal Gupta was travelling home in 2012. Checking the latest status of a waitlisted ticket was the most annoying problem for him, as it is for all train travelers. It was that time the idea of PNR Alerts stuck to him. He launched a website in Feb 2012 with the functionality to track wait-listed PNR ticket of users and to alert them whenever its status gets changed.

After finishing my Masters in Computer Application from NIT Jamshedpur in the year 2011, Vishal Gupta joined an IT company in Bangalore. He started working on the idea implemented it so that the services were provided absolutely free of cost to users. "My expectation from this was to give satisfaction to my heart and not for profit," he says.

MyPNRAlerts is online startup based out of Bangalore, the website is entirely developed, maintained and owned by Vishal Gupta. It doesnot have any promoters, partners or owners.

MyPNRAlerts provides following services to its users –

• PNR Status Alert -
  Create alert for waitlisted PNR status and get alerts by Email & SMS whenever PNR status changes.


• Seat Availability Alert -
  Create Seat Availability alerts for you future journey. This will keep a track on the number of seats available on a train and will alert you constantly so that you can make reservations on time and you get confirmed tickets.


• Passing By trains -
  This will give an overview of all the trains that will be passing from a particular station in the next few hours.


• Current Booking Availability -
  Many a times, some of the seats are still vacant even after chart preparation is done. You can even book tickets for that train. This feature will show the list of trains departing from a station with vacant seats after chart preparation.

Notably, another relevant service available providing railways information but nor PNR alerts, that we reviewed in July this year is ConfirmTkt which is a tool which assists the users in predicting confirmation chances of their train tickets with an unbelievable accuracy.

Notably, sometime back ERail.info, a website catering to Indian railways information, released ERail API for developers as single source of database for Indian railways information which enables them to develop apps or websites which can provide information related to Indian Railways Trains using an HTTP request. Using ERail API You can get the list of stations, trains between stations, route of a train, current running status of the train and get PNR current status.

About appreciation of MyPNRAlerts received, Vishals says - "I love when users appreciate it. This gives me more energy and passion to continuously work towards it," . He is using JAVA and REST framework that makes the platform more scalable and it is hosted on Amazon Web Services which makes it more accessible. The platform is being handled alone by him. MyPNR Alerts just launched an Android App. The company plans to approach travel partner for integration of the services.

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Vishal says, "Everything that scares you is an opportunity to know your best self better. Do what your heart believes is right. Focus on the usability of the idea, once you are up to this then look for the profit."

[caption id="attachment_95393" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Screens of MyPNRAlerts Android app [/caption]

Predict the confirmation of your train ticket with ConfirmTkt

ConfirmTkt is a tool which assists the users in predicting confirmation chances of their train tickets with an unbelievable accuracy. With a mission to make Travel Simpler, Sripad and Dinesh came up with the idea of ConfirmTkt while working together at IBM. Sripad and Dinesh already have an android app in the market by the name 'Meterup'. Meterup is Auto fare, Taxi fare, Cab fare app in India.

Before boarding your train, you can check the status on Android devices as well with their ConfirmTkt app.

We asked them how it all started, and Dinesh said "We personally experienced the difficulties of getting a train ticket to travel to our native places. Whenever we try to book a ticket it would show waiting list. Sripad used to book tickets by analyzing the past trends manually. So we both thought why can’t we build something which can analyze and tell you whether to book or not."

ConfirmTkt is backed by a unique and efficient algorithm which predicts the future status of PNR's in seconds based on historical trends. It also assists you in deciding whether to book or not if the train is in waitlist.
At ConfirmTkt you will be able to

• Predict your ticket confirmation chances if you have a waitlist ticket.


• PNR status check.


• Subscribe for the PNR confirmation notifications.


• Search trains between a desired source and destination pair.


• Compare all the ticket confirmation chances for the trains on a single screen and decide on the travel options.

"All you need is a valid PNR. Enter the PNR and click 'Get status' button to get all your PNR information instantly. ConfirmTkt shows the ticket confirmation chances with in a fraction of seconds,” says Sripad. Once you have finished your PNR status check, if your ticket is in waitlist/ RAC and you want to be notified when your ticket gets confirmed. Then just enter a valid email ID to subscribe for PNR confirmation notification we handle the rest. Once your PNR gets confirmed we will send you an email notification with the detailed PNR information," added Dinesh.

The intelligence behind the ConfirmTkt PNR predictions is very close to how humans think. We humans predict and act on the future based on past experiences. ConfirmTkt prediction algorithm is highly efficient and trustable. It has been thoroughly tested on about 2500 trains and achieved an overall accuracy of 88%. It took them 2 years to develop an algorithm with such an accuracy. “Do not worry about the accuracy, we will take care of it,” they say. The ticket confirmation chances may vary from a holiday/weekend to a normal day. As a result this 2 person team maintains ticketing trends for holidays /weekends separately and predict accuracy based on that.

The algorithm interprets these numbers by comparing the current availability with the ticket confirmation thresholds. By seeing these numbers, users can easily mitigate the risk involved while deciding on the ticket booking.

This is how the algorithm interprets ConfirmTkt status:

• If the confirmation chances are above 70% then we interpret it as 'Confirm'


• If the confirmation chances are between 30% and 70% then we interpret as 'Probable'


• Anything below 30 % is interpreted as 'No Chance'

They are not using any third party software’s for big data analytics. They have built the software on their own ad plan to improve and put new functionalities to the product soon. We see it becoming the most innovative ticket search tool that can show all possible ways of getting a ticket for any mode of transport. As a message for future entrepreneurs, they said "Don't be afraid to take risk. If you want to solve some problem that nobody else dared to solve and are passionate about it then just do it."

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPkBs9xCjkk]

Abhibus.com appointed by Andhra Pradesh SRTC as B2C franchisee

One of India's oldest online bus ticket booking portals, abhibus.com has been appointed by Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) as a franchisee for its B2C bookings. This means that the portal will be able to sell tickets for the APSRTC network in cities, towns and villages in Andhra Pradesh as well as beyond the state’s borders, wherever the APSRTC has its services. APSRTC is currently powered also by the online passenger reservation system provided by Abhibus Services India Pvt. Ltd.

APSRTC bus tickets inventory would now be available for the first time on abhibus.com apart from being available on apsrtconline.in. Currently the website has ticket inventory from over 1500 operators and 15000 routes. The website also has its Android and iPhone app for mobile bookings of bus tickets.

The other competitors of AbhiBus.com in India are RedBus.in and TicketGoose.

Talking about the appointment, Mr. Sudhakar Reddy Chirra, Founder and CEO of Abhibus said, “We are extremely proud to be chosen as one of the B2C franchisee for APSRTC. This is a great boost for us at abhibus.com. This takes up our current inventory up from 5.5 lakh seats daily to 8 lakh seats and adds up over 9000 bus services. Currently abhibus.com provides bus ticket inventory from over 1500 operators and 15,000 routes.

CEO of Abhibus said - "Bus travel is one of the oldest and most economical ways to travel across the country and our aim is to revolutionize this space with meaningful and cutting-edge offerings and services. We are pleased to bag this opportunity as APSRTC has the largest fleet of buses and services across India. We intend to add more services for our customers so that they don't need to go to multiple sites anymore to book their bus tickets. We aim to simplify the entire process and provide more and better search results every time consumers search for their next bus."

Founded in the year 2007, Abhibus provide end-to-end software services & solutions to all bus fleet owners across India. The software solutions provided by Abhibus include online passenger reservation system, e-ticketing system, fleet management solutions, and vehicle tracking systems, passenger information systems, logistics management which is backed up by a 24x7 customer support centre. These solutions are provided to both State Transport Corporations and Private Fleet Operators. Currently three large State Transport Undertakings and over 200 Private Fleet Operators use solutions from Abhibus .

redBus Updates Windows Phone App; Native App Launched for iOS

After having launched its app on Windows Phone store and Google Play Store, redBus.in, India's largest online bus ticket booking company, has finally launched a native app for Apple iOS devices, which enables iOS users to search 10,000 bus routes from 800+ operators directly from the app and complete their bus booking.

The app also comes with multiple payment modes including Credit Card, Debit Card, Net Banking, and Cash-on-Deliver.

The company also has updated the Windows Phone app with a completely fresh design and UI, which strictly follows the frameworks suggested for Windows Phone 8.

The updated Windows Phone app comes with newly added features like virtual boarding point and live tracking.  However, these features are still not available on the iOS app and will be released in the near future.

There are other features like the new busBuddy, which helps you manage your bookings seamlessly. Also, using the app you can now find the exact location and navigate to your boarding point on a map. If in case the user is facing any problems either locating the boarding point or has any travel related queries, an option to call for support is readily available. Additionally, users can cancel their bookings right from the app.

Truly it feels like Mobile is the future with availability of such option right under your fingertips.

New features in redBus.in 2.0 for Windows Phone

• Try out a completely fresh look of redBus.in on windows phone 8.


• Download all your bookings from redBus.in to your device.


• The new busBuddy feature:


• busBuddy helps you manage your bookings easily from one place.


• You can find the exact location and navigate to your boarding point on a map.


• Call support for your travel related queries straight from the app.


• Cancel your bookings straight from the app.

Windows Phone users can download the app here and Apple users can click here to download the newly added native iOS app.

Online Bus Ticketing website TicketGoose raises $2.9 million funding

Online bus ticketing portal TicketGoose, has $2.9 million (Rs 18 crore) in fresh funding from US-based investor Indventure. The fund raised will be used to further enhance overall portal development and workforce.

Ticketgoose provides information like price, availability and booking facility for buses to more than 3000 destinations in South India and currently have more than 250 bus travel partners.

Launched in August 2007 TicketGoose is a ticketing web portal launched with a goal to provide online services to everyone travelling by bus. It is considered as strong contender of another famous online bus ticketing portal - RedBus.in, although RedBus offer its services to almost all Indian regions TicketGoose is more concentrated to south of India.

TicketGoose is promoted by Chennai based Efficsys InfoTech India Pvt. Ltd. Efficsys, established in 2007. As per TechinAsia website last year, the startup was processing 4,000 to 5,000 ticket bookings a day, which led to $8.19 million in sales revenue for that year. The team is aiming at $20.5 million in revenue for 2013.

TicketGoose users can also book the return ticket and can also cancel the tickets online. TicketGoose ease the customers to book bus tickets by walking into its channel partner outlet which includes Corporate Sectors and Ticketing Agents. Ticketgoose is also fast expanding its IT software solutions for private Omni Bus Operators which will enable them to go online and offer their inventory on real time basis.

RedBus.in launches App for Windows devices

RedBus.in, India's largest online bus ticketing company has launched the redBus.in app for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. The app delivers several new features now available to Windows users. These include directions to boarding points, bus tracking, journey tips, and history as well as instant notifications for bus location and special offers – right on the home screen. Powered by Windows Azure, the Bus Buddy feature comes into play when a bus has GPS tracking or for providing helpful reminders to customer such as "carry an umbrella", "carry a charger", etc.

You can now download the app right away from the Windows Phone Store and the Windows Store

RedBus.in is offering tickets for over 12,000 routes across India including 700+ luxury bus operators. Other key players which provide bus booking via mobile apps are - PayTM and MakemyTrip which bus booking via SMS also.

"The redBus.in app leverages the best of Windows to ensure users have a uniquely differentiated experience. We are especially happy about features such as instant notifications, bus tracking and directions to boarding points,” said Joseph Landes, General Manager – Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. He further added, "The Windows Phone Store and Windows Store are growing at an unprecedented rate, which underscores the growing consumer and developer momentum for Windows devices."

Commenting on the collaboration between redBus.in and Microsoft, Phanindra Sama, CEO, said, "The redBus.in Windows app is ideal for the modern consumer who is always on the move and to whom time is of essence. Windows Phone and Windows 8 are the most trusted and widely used platforms and therefore we are excited to launch the redBus.in app on these devices."

RedBus.in also announced a special offer wherein Windows 8 users can get Rs. 75 off for a minimum purchase of a Rs. 500 ticket. The offer is available until 31st December, 2013 at select retail outlets.