Tiki acquires ticket selling startup

By Dat Nguyen August 21, 2019 | 05:43 pm PT

Ticketbox is the first company Tiki has acquired. Photo courtesy of Ticketbox.

E-commerce firm Tiki has acquired ticketing startup Ticketbox to have a foot in Vietnam's entertainment industry as it seeks to attract more online shoppers.

The acquisition, announced Tuesday, was done by Tiki Investment, a subsidiary of Tiki established last year with a charter capital of VND250 billion ($10.8 million).

The deal, whose value was not revealed, came after Tiki Chairman Tran Ngoc Thai Son took over the CEO chair of Ticketbox in July.

HCMC-based Tiki, second to Singapore-based Shopee as the most visited e-commerce website in Vietnam, estimates the country’s event ticket market to be worth $40 million this year, up 50 percent from last year, and the movie ticket market, $160 million.

This is the first time Tiki has bought a company.

In June it had announced plans to sponsor 100 music videos by Vietnam’s most popular artists to attract more e-commerce traffic.

Ticketbox, established in 2013, sells tickets online for concerts, musicals and conferences and partners with event management companies to organize concerts.

The company plans to sell tickets for 5,000 events from now until January, and will begin selling movie tickets from November.