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Check out the latest movie reviews and trailers. Then pick seats, make payment and get ticket confirmation. Moviegoers in India can now book tickets for their favourite Holly- and Bollywood movies through their mobile phones.

Tagit, the company behind this first-of-its-kind mobile ticketing in the Indian sub-continent, hails from Singapore. Meet Mr Navtej Singh, chief executive officer of Tagit, the first CEO to be featured in Enterprise 20, a new fortnightly series about local SMEs on their journey of growth in and out of Singapore.

Going to the movies in India has become more much fun for millions of people in the country, thanks to a new technology developed by a Singapore company and introduced there a few months ago.

Pics/ JAMIE KOH

The new service is available to mobile phone owners, who can now get movie tickets delivered to them via their phone bookings.

"The box office is literally put into the hands of the movie goers," says Mr Navtej Singh, chief executive officer of home-grown company called Tagit, an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise).

"Tagit's first-of-its-kind mobile ticketing service in India works as a Java application which can be downloaded by an SMS request," said the 56-year-old entrepreneur, who is known as Naffi to his business associates and friends. In September, Tagit launched its mobile ticketing service with PVR, the largest cinema multiplex chain in India with a 26 per cent market share in the country, and Airtel, the largest mobile phone operator in the country with over 25 million subscribers.

Mr Naffi said in an interview with AsiaOne that for Airtel subscribers, the Tagit service application is downloadable from the Airtel Live portal, which gives free GPRS access.

"The application engages the user in a simple, interactive manner. It prompts him to indicate the movie he wishes to see, the cinema he prefers, asks the date and time of the show, and then incredibly gives him the choice of selecting his seat from a layout of the cinema seating plan which appears on the mobile screen."

Finally, the user gives his credit card details for making payment, after which he gets confirmation of his transaction, together with the booking number, which he has to present at the box office to collect his ticket.

Mr Naffi said that the software developed by his company in Singapore also allows delivery of tickets onto the mobile phone in the form of two-dimension bar codes, which can then be scanned from the mobile phone at the cinema entrance for gaining admission.

"We expect PVR and other cinema chain operators to adopt this alternative method of ticket delivery soon as it will make the whole process logically more complete, and give movie goers a seamless and comfortable experience of going to the movies," he added.

Tagit's mobile ticketing solution is the first such GPRS-based system which provides end-to-end fulfillment on the mobile phone in an engaging and stimulating way.

Mr Naffi says the application is also able to connect users to multi-media content such as movie reviews, trailers of forthcoming new releases and songs, which will be downloadable on the mobile phone.

Tagit is essentially a mobile commerce, or m-commerce company offering value-added services on the mobile phone. Mr Naffi says his company was the first to introduce end-to-end transaction capability on the mobile phone with secure payments, thus enabling instant fulfillment for consumers.

Tagit's technology development phase was completed in mid-2006, and the company launched its first live service in India on Sept 29 with PVR and Airtel. The Airtel service is provided by Bharti, in which SingTel has a major stake.

"India is a country where movies are a national pastime. So our new service is indeed a welcome and much-needed change," said Mr Naffi.

He said Tagit's introduction of its innovative mobile ticketing solution was done with two key objectives in mind. The first was to create an additional, more convenient sales channel for ticket bookings, which could provide end-to-end transaction capability, including payments and delivery.

The second was to reduce the service cost of the business by reducing dependency on the traditional sales channel, the box office, and customer support channel, the call centre.

"The impact was immediate. Within a month of the launch nearly 2 per cent of ticket sales shifted to the mobile. We think this will be a hit within six months," said Mr Naffi.

The average transaction was about S$15 and many transactions had gone as high as S$50 and S$100, as customers booked tickets for the whole family.

Mr Naffi said Tagit's m-commerce service was promoted by Airtel as a value-added service to its subscribers - initially free of charge. However, from January 2007, a S$1 per month subscription fee was introduced. The launch of this service was done by a high profile nationwide advertising campaign.

He added that Tagit's experience with the PVR mobile ticketing service all over India, "is a good precursor to an airline m-commerce project".

"We have achieved good understanding of the implementation issues of a large scale project and have gained valuable experience in managing a live system, 24/ 7, with 99.5 per cent uptime."

Set-up in September 2004 as a mobile solutions and m-commerce company, Tagit can look forward to a busy time ahead as it develops in m-commerce applications.

"We have recently won the bid from the InfoComms Development Authority (IDA) to manage the government's 2D (two dimensional) bar code programme.

"In the next two years, all 16 government agencies are expected to offer some public services on mobile phones and 2D bar codes will be used as the connecting point as well as the delivery point for things like tickets, coupons, vouchers and the like," said Mr Naffi.

narendra@sph.com.sg

This is a fortnightly series, appearing every other Monday. Watch out for the next feature on Feb 12.