Turkcell provides football fans with tickets via mobile

Turkish mobile operator Turkcell has teamed up with the country’s football association to sell tickets to its subscribers to watch their national team . More than 2,000 ticket transactions were processed using Turkcell’s Smart Ticket application.

The operator collaborated with the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) to run trials for three of Turkey’s international football matches, against Estonia, Romania and Denmark. The m-ticketing service was powered by Onebip, the mobile payments service from billing technology provider Neomobile.

Fans were able to buy tickets via SMS using any mobile phone; they sent an SMS to the number “3544” with the message “BiLET” and the ticket price was charged directly to their mobile phone bill. The fan then received an m-ticket code, which was activated at special gates in the stadium to allow entry into the match. The trial also enabled football fans who may not have had a bank account or credit card to purchase match tickets.

“Mobile technologies are changing our habits by making life so much easier,” said Koray Ozturkler, chief corporate affairs officer of Turkcell. “We will continue to build on the use of smart ticket in various areas like stadiums, movie theatres, concerts and even public transportation through collaboration with global companies.”