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ENTERTAINMENT

Fandango Becomes Largest Online Ticketer in Latin America (EXCLUSIVE)

By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Fandango dramatically expanded its presence in Latin America on Monday. The ticketing giant announced that it has signed multi-year deals with Cinepolis, Cinemark, National Amusements (Showcase Cinemas, UCI), and Cinemex, companies with a significant presence in the region. The deal adds 5,000 new screens to ’s count and enables the company to sell tickets in more than 15 Latin American countries.

The new deals will greatly increase the ticketing footprint of Fandango’s subsidiary Fandango Latin America, giving it access to 94% of all screens in Colombia, 78% in Chile, 72% in Bolivia, and half of all screens in Mexico and Peru. The pact pushes Fandango’s global screen count to more than 45,000 worldwide and grants it access to more than half of all screens across the region. It is now the largest online ticketer in Latin America.

“It makes sense for us,” said Paul Yanover, Fandango’s president. “There’s an avid culture of moviegoing in Latin America, they have beautiful movie theaters, and they are connected customers who buy tickets on their phones and devices.”

The move is part of a larger push by Fandango to grow its international presence. In 2012, Fandango had just 20,000 screens, with the bulk of them sitting in the United States. That count has more than doubled and a major part of that has been the company’s decision to expand into Central and South America. Central to that effort was Fandango’s 2015 acquisition of Brazil-based Ingresso and its 2016 purchase of Peruvian-based Cinepapaya, major online ticketers in the region.

“The entire film industry is becoming more global,” said Yanover. “There are more growth opportunities in many of these markets.”

Fandango is extending its new technologies and innovations to exhibitors in Latin America. With Ingresso in Brazil, it recently launched a new handheld device that allows cinema employees to more easily assist customers with their ticket purchases. The goal is to reduce lines and cut down on wait times. To that end, the company launched the Google Pay digital wallet as a digital payment option for its customers. It’s the first ticketing company in Brazil to do so.

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