e-commerce
Alibaba enters Indian internet space with investment in ticketing
NEW DELHI: The Chinese infotainment giant Alibaba Group’s entertainment arm Alibaba Pictures Group Limited has invested Rs 1.2 billion to acquire a majority stake in Chennai-based online ticketing platform TicketNew.
This will enable TicketNew to strengthen its position and expand its services across India.
This is Alibaba Pictures’s first acquisition outside China in internet ticketing industry.
TicketNews presently has around 3,000 screens in its network across India with an average ticket booking history of 100.000 per day, it is learnt.
With the partnership in place, the company hopes to take its network to cover 300,000 in the next eight months, the source added.
TicketNew Founder Ramkumar Nammalvar while TicketNew has a strong base in the South, especially in the neighbourhood theatres in tier-II and tier-III cities, it does not have much presence beyond that.
Nammalvar said the company wanted to reach wider audience and expand to other cities, which requires substantial financial and technological resources.
MUMBAI: From flights to tracks, Cleartrip is now trying to keep every journey on the same ticket. Cleartrip, part of Flipkart, has launched train ticket bookings through a partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, marking its entry into India’s vast rail travel ecosystem.
The integration allows users to search, book and manage train journeys directly within the app, as the company pushes towards becoming a unified, multi-modal travel platform. The move plugs Cleartrip into one of the world’s largest transportation networks, where over 800 million reserved passengers travel annually, alongside a daily footfall of around 23 million across Indian Railways.
The offering includes bookings across routes nationwide, covering General and Tatkal quotas as per Ministry of Railways guidelines. Users can also access real-time seat availability, fare insights, PNR status tracking, berth preferences and digital payment options within a single interface.
The expansion reflects a broader shift in travel platforms from specialising in a single mode to stitching together end-to-end journeys. For Cleartrip, the bet is not just on scale, but on simplifying a system often seen as complex and fragmented.
Company executives said the focus is on embedding predictive intelligence and personalisation into the booking journey, aiming to make everything from discovery to post-booking support faster and more intuitive.
The train booking feature is currently live on the app, with plans to extend it to the web platform soon, signalling a push towards a seamless cross-platform experience.
In a country where railways move billions each year, the next battleground for travel apps may well be decided not in the skies, but on the tracks.
