Ticketbis Expands

Asia is still considered an untapped market for ticket resale, according to a recent article in Forbes, but research indicates it could be a profitable one. China, Japan, South Korea and India are all powerful e-commerce markets, with developed gaming and app businesses.

Forty-two percent of the world’s Internet users live in Asia, which also has the highest percentage of smartphone users in the world.

At present, ticket resale operations in the area mostly involve ticket auctions or user-to-user networks, both of which pose security problems.

Ticketbis is already reporting good business in Asia, including a 40 percent increase in sales through Ticketbis Japan over the past two months. Site traffic alone has risen 70 percent throughout Asia in the past three months, with sales rising 80 percent.

The company expects the sales percentages in Asia to reach those in its already established markets of Europe and Latin America by the end of the year. What’s particularly interesting about the growth of secondary ticket sales in Asia is that not all the tickets sold are for events in Asia.

The biggest-selling event in Japan for the past month was the Milan Derby, a soccer match in Italy between two local teams.

The reason for the success in Japan is that both teams have Japanese players. And soccer may be the biggest spur for Ticketbis’s business throughout Asia. AsiaOne News recently reported that tickets to a match between the national teams of Brazil and Japan that took place in Singapore sold out immediately, with fans paying more than double for tickets from anywhere they could get them – even after the match started.

The news site reported that before and during the match, dozens of people walked around the stadium looking to buy tickets.