BookMyShow is one of the most dominant startups in its space — it has a massive share of India’s movie ticket revenues, and has maintained this dominance for decades. Its founder Ashish Hemrajani was asked in an interview last year about how BookMyShow was different from the many competitors that had sprung up over the years.
“We are bloody good at our job. That’s why we are where we are,” he simply said.
He then provided a historical perspective, highlighting the competitive landscape BookMyShow has navigated. “Having said that, I think a lot of people don’t know that we had 19 competitors in 1999. In 2006, when the markets picked up, we had 21 competitors. Even today, as we speak, there are close to 25 competitors.”
Despite this consistent competition, BookMyShow has not just survived but thrived. Hemrajani credits this success to the dedication and growth within his team. “Look, we’ve done a lot of things right. Kudos to the team and my founding team. My CTO has been with me for 16 years. My heads of operations, both of them, have been with me for 12 years each. My head of customer support used to be a call center agent, became a team leader, became a supervisor, today leads a team of 300 people, 24/7, 365 days of the year.”
Hemrajani’s pride in his team’s development is evident as he shares another example: “My head of warehousing, where every event where there are 5,000 people that come, there are EDC machines, there are turnstiles, there are satellites, there are links that need to be set up, there are two parts… that guy used to be an office boy in my company, cannot speak English, and today leads my warehouse, and he runs his own inventory in and out on his own. He’s on Salesforce, he integrated it. So we allow people to punch far above their weight, and therefore, when push comes to shove, these guys are ready to kill.”
Over the years, BookMyShow has faced competition from various players. Paytm Movies, for instance, emerged as a significant challenger when it had begun offering plenty of discounts on movie bookings, but eventually fell by the wayside. Currently, the landscape is evolving with new players entering the entertainment booking space. Zomato’s foray into event ticketing a dedicated platform in District presents a fresh challenge. Whether BookMyShow can maintain its leading position against these evolving competitors remains to be seen, but Hemrajani’s confidence in his recent interactions suggests that the comapanhy is ready to face the challenges head-on.