It seems that the Noida-based mobile wallet and online marketplace Paytm, which is rapidly gaining market share in the movies and ticketing space from companies such as BookMyShow and MakeMyTrip, won't be giving up its discounts and cashback strategy anytime soon.

Confirms the founder and CEO of the firm Vijay Shekhar Sharma, saying that the company still makes money despite heavy cashbacks.

“For any public business, a strategy to gain market share from the rivals should be such that it looks funny or impossible to the competitor. We are profitable on a transaction level even after cashbacks, marketing, and payment gateway costs,” Sharma said while addressing India Digital Summit 2018 held in the capital this week.

On gaining market share from MakeMyTrip

“Deep Kalra is a serial entrepreneur for whom I have a lot of affection and respect. He was also on our board in the past. But when it comes to business, they do transactions of 17 million in a quarter in flight bookings. Last quarter we did about 10.5 million transactions. We are now the number two travel booking company in India,” said Sharma.

On giving competition to BookMyShow



Sharma said that for the last three Bollywood hits 'Paytm contributed at least 22 percent to all online box-office collections.'

How Flipkart changed the online game in 2014

“In 2014 an Indian startup (Flipkart) received a billion dollar cheque. It was not a billion dollar valuation. It was billion dollars of cash coming in. Sachin and Binny Bansal changed the online scene of this country's startups with a billion dollar cheque. Thus, we did not build payment company in 2014, we build a commerce company which builds a payments company.”

The company is gaining heavy market share from rivals in categories such as travel and entertainment ticketing by offering heavy cashbacks of up to Rs 500 on first flight ticket or a Rs 150 cashback on a Rs 300 movie ticket.

"The opportunity today is to make a product, take a bet on this country, its customers, fellow citizens, build it and let the world will see it in wonder. This is the time for the Indian entrepreneurs to build something to the country. This is the time for them to make something for this country and show it to the world.”

(Compiled by Sabahat Contractor)