Online movie ticket sales firm eyes Asia
A Sri Lankan firm which is making waves with its hugely successful Online movie and ticket sales, is now setting its sights on Asia with units already set up in Cambodia and Vietnam, its CEO said.
Ridgecrest Financials, commonly known locally for tickets.lk, is planning to extend this online movie and event ticket sales platform across Asia, with the firm already setting up shop in Cambodia and Vietnam, according to the company’s Chief Executive Sanath Fernando. The company is currently considering a re-branding strategy falling in line with this marketing push. Speaking to the Business Times, Mr. Fernando also revealed that tickets.lk, which has a registered base of around 85,000 customers, has also begun focusing on other areas in terms of cinema in Sri Lanka, having recently started distributing movies too, with its first being Hollywood blockbuster Pompeii. It is also helping local cinemas to go digital, and facilitating financing for this upgrade. He also noted that another area for tickets.lk to grow locally was the events-based ticketing area, which he hopes also to tie in further to the corporate sector in terms of events, payment methodologies, etc.
Mr. Fernando also noted that the company’s second most popular service, financial manager finance.lk was now also active in India. This service had now started aiming more at individuals in Sri Lanka, after gaining acceptance amongst local corporates. He also signalled that this offering was likely to catch on locally because 70 to 75 per cent of Sri Lankans are getting overcharged and finance.lk could help with that. Commenting on the platform on which all these services are built, LinkLK.com, Mr. Fernando elaborated that this was an innovative platform from which any entrepreneur can launch their service since it came with payments functionality already built in. He also signalled that this platform already offered access to all major credit cards, such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express, while Dialog’s ezCash payments would also soon come in.
Further, he also highlighted the fact that Ridgecrest had recently moved its main operations to Singapore, to facilitate easier payments. He blamed local financial and structural impediments for this re-location, and advised Sri Lankan companies to do the same as that country’s infrastructure was more conducive to long-term growth. Additionally, the move to Singapore was also said to have helped the company get more active in markets such as Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, etc. Mr. Fernando opined that, from an ASEAN region perspective, it was much better to say that Ridgecrest was based in Singapore.
Having recently completed a round of ‘angel’ funding, Ridgecrest is currently valued at US$ 1.5 million, according to Mr. Fernando. The company also plans to extend into sectors such as food, healthcare, education and travel in Sri Lanka in the future.