The blockbuster "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn" broke mobile records at movie guide and ticket seller Fandango this past weekend. The company reports
that 22% of all tickets sold through its service came from mobile devices.
The share of commerce coming from mobile beat previous recordholder "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,"
which generated 20% of its Fandango sales via mobile. Overall, ticket sales from handsets have grown 73% year-over-year, the Comcast-owned company tells Online Media Daily.
While blockbusters
clearly drive interest, Fandango General Manager and EVP Rick Butler says the "Breaking Dawn" figures are not atypical. "Certain movies now regularly sell 20% of tickets on mobile devices," he says.
The trend is not just for the big releases for which moviegoers are anxious about reserving seats against sellouts. Moviegoers often make decisions based on current time or place, and use the
smartphone's GPS-enabled Fandango app to see what is playing “where you are right now in the next hour. We predict that our mobile percentage of ticket sales will be one of every four tickets by
the first quarter next year."
The Fandango app across iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS and Windows Phone 7 just passed the 20 million download milestone, the company reports. More than 40% of
total traffic to the brand now comes from devices. Butler says the share of downloaders actively using the app is quite strong. “During peak moviegoing periods, it’s as high as 10 million
on mobile.”
In addition to buying on the mobile device, Fandango has been expanding a new paperless Mobile Ticket that helps the customer bypass the usual redemption process at theater
box offices or kiosks and delivers tickets to the device as well.
The new model issues the ticket directly to the handset for scanning by the ticket-taker. Initially available only in 200
Reading Cinemas and Hollywood Theaters, the Mobile ticket program was greatly expanded last week to 1,000 Regal Entertainment Group locations.