Fandango Sells 22% of 'Breaking Dawn' Tickets on Mobile
- by Steve Smith @popeyesm, November 21, 2011
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.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the very thorough article on Fandango. As always, your numbers and stats were plentiful and on target.
I've been in the mobile industry since 2001 and it still blows my mind that we're SO far behind! It drives me CRAZY! I guess that's what happens when you're raised by tech geeks. ;-)
The reason I'm writing is because I have a suggestion. When you include information in your columns like you did today: Regal has expanded Fandango's paperless/mobile tickets to 1,000 theaters...
Would MediaPost allow any part of that to be a hyperlink to a list of the theaters? The reason I say it that way is b/c it takes readers off the MediaPost site, however, if folks are interested enough in this information, they may go digging for it anyway. And I'm sure you are well aware, if it's not clearly posted by Regal, their executive offices do not communicate well to the general public or if you are working with them at a business level.
A simple link is offering more information and is useful for everyone.
On a separate note, I get emailed coupons from Bed, Bath & Beyond. You may be familiar with their 20% of one item coupons. I brought my iPhone in with me. (I really wasn't planning on shopping that day, but it was walking distance from the theater.) I ended up making a fairly large purchase, so I showed the gal helping me the coupon that was emailed to me and she took it! All they had to do was manually enter the code into their system, and POOF! DONE! I saved $70.00! They did it right by their customer! But it should have been a mobile coupon in the first place.
Thanks for the great read!
I hope you and your family have a heartwarming Thanksgiving.
Yours Truly,
Lisa Fields
Hi Lisa
thanks for sharing your mobile experience.
Here is the list of Regal theaters currently offering the Mobile Ticket. Apparently, it is far from 1,000 at start.
http://www.regmovies.com/mobiletickets.aspx