Matrix Cellular Enters E-Commerce Space With 'Travel Companion' App

International mobile SIM seller Matrix Cellular on Wednesday launched an app for international travellers to help them book movie tickets, restaurants and taxi, among other things.

'Matrix Travel Companion App' is now available for free on Android and Apple iOS platform, Bollywood actress and Matrix Cellular Independent Director Gul Panag said.

She said the app has been incubated by Matrix Cellular but its business will operate independently from SIM service business of Matrix.

"Though we will like existing Matrix users to use this app but it is not mandatory for them to download it. It is free for everyone across the globe," Panag said.

She said the company has partnered with Zomato, Uber to provide services in which they specialise while Matrix on its own has worked on tie-up with vendors for shopping, forex purchase etc.

Matrix Travel Companion App claims to provide access to all popular categories like international shopping discounts, shopping VAT reclaims, ticket booking for attractions (150,000 partners), broadway and west end, hotel and apartment bookings (500,000), restaurant reservations, pre-book, book a ride, travel insurance, buy and recharge prepaid cards, reload forex on prepaid cards, and many more.

"We are not immediately looking at monetising this app. Once we have good user base then we can think of monetising but even in that case we will not charge the app users but look at other ways like we may pass on less discount to customers," Matrix Cellular, Founder and Director, Gagan Dugal said.

He said the company is providing foreign exchange facility through the app in India but not charging anything extra in the process.

"There are 20 million outbound travellers from India of which 8 million are business travellers and close to 1.5 million travel to Europe. We realised that clients were not aware of solutions that can add value to their travel so we came up with an app which offers convenience and give access to best deals to travellers. We expect to start monetising the app by the end of next year," Dugal said.