Movie ticket seller Fandango is announcing a partnership with Yahoo today that will see it becoming the online and mobile movie ticketer for Yahoo! Movies, a service which now has over 30 million U.S. users according to comScore. The new collaboration offers Yahoo users access to Fandango’s 20,000 screens across the U.S. and will support purchases online, on mobile and on tablets.
Fandango, which added support for PayPal back in December, says that January and February have been the two best-selling months in the company’s history. Much of that increase in usage is apparently coming from mobile devices. Fandango says that 40% of its visitors come from mobile devices, including both phones and tablets.
The company, which is owned by Comcast, also recently forged ticketing agreements with Regency Theatres and AMC Theatres. Combined, these two deals added 3,000 more screens to Fandango’s total, boosting it up to nearly 20,000 countrywide. They were critical deals to Fandango’s win of the Yahoo partnership, too, which allowed it to beat out rival MovieTickets.com. But those moves did not go unnoticed – in February, MovieTickets, one of AMC’s founding shareholders, joined a lawsuit against the chain of theaters, saying that AMC is in breach of a joint venture agreement that allowed MovieTickets exclusive rights to AMC’s ticket inventory.
“Not content with the percentage of MovieTickets.com it previously negotiated for, AMC has intentionally sought to destroy MovieTickets.com’s present opportunity to maximize its value by achieving competitive dominance in the marketplace,” the suit states. It also alleges that AMC used its insider status to stop a $150 million+ offer from Comcast to acquire MovieTickets, which would have allowed for a merger with Fandango.
The results of the case may also end up impacting the Yahoo deal.
Fandango entertains and informs consumers with exclusive film clips, trailers, celebrity interviews, fan reviews and news, while offering the ability to quickly select a film and buy tickets in advance. Fandango bought Movies.com from Disney in June of 2008.
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services. Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), incorporated in 1995, is a global Internet brand. To users, the Company provides owned and operated online properties and services (Yahoo! Properties, Offerings, or Owned and Operated sites). Yahoo! also extends its marketing platform and access to Internet users beyond Yahoo! Properties through its distribution network...
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