Global travel search engine Skyscanner’s investments into mobile, Asia Pacific and diversification including a booking platform are paying off, giving a double digit fillip to both revenues and gross bookings for the year ending December 31, 2015.
Revenues were £120 million ($183 million), up 28% compared to the prior year, and gross bookings for the year were $11.2 billion, up 49%.
User interface for Skyscanner’s Singapore site shows a marked difference from a year ago – clearly showing its diversification strategy beyond flights
Highlights were:
- The number of monthly visitors surged 48% to reach a record 50m. Mobile visitors grew 60% and now represent 59% of total visitors, up seven percentage points in just 12 months. The company also saw a growth in visitors booking from a Skyscanner mobile platform – mobile web bookings grew by 24% year on year, comprising 42% of all conversions.
- Asia Pacific continued to show strong growth, with visitors increasing 48% last year. Mobile visitors grew 62% year over year. This includes Japan, the third largest travel market in the world where Skyscanner and Yahoo! JAPAN established a new joint venture, Skyscanner Japan, in July.
- In China, a focus for Skyscanner since the acquisition of Youbibi in 2014, visitors grew 67% and mobile visitors nearly doubled.
- The Americas region saw 55% growth in visitors last year, more than doubling in the US. Mobile visitors in the region nearly doubled. The company also launched in Mexico.
- Visitors in Europe grew 42%, with mobile visitors growing 55%.
- Skyscanner’s apps downloaded more than 40 million times in total.
- Beyond Skyscanner’s Flights business, Skyscanner for Business, the company’s B2B arm, saw revenue double. During the year, Skyscanner for Business launched its own Car Hire white label product and increased partners 75 percent to 400, including major brands such as MSN. Revenue from Skyscanner’s Car Hire product grew by 71% in 2015.
Williams: First half-year focus on product drove momentum for the business.
“2015 was another strong year for Skyscanner, showing solid progress in our strategy of expansion beyond our home market, into mobile and beyond flights,” said Gareth Williams, Skyscanner CEO and co-founder.
“Our first-half focus on investing in our product drove momentum for the business in the second half. We also saw excellent growth in travellers planning their trips on Skyscanner all around the world, especially on mobile and in the important regions of Asia Pacific and the Americas.
“Skyscanner’s global coverage, our direct relationships with partners and travellers and the self-built technology that underpins our success, account for our solid performance in 2015.”
In 2015, Skyscanner opened two new offices last year, engineering hubs in London and Sofia, in addition to the expansion of existing spaces in Budapest and Miami. The company took on over 280 new hires in 2015 – technical talent now makes up half of Skyscanner’s 770 strong team across the world.
Skyscanner also marked up several industry firsts for the company in 2015, including an artificial intelligence voice search tool for Amazon’s Alexa and the first ticket sold using new NDC capabilities with British Airways. The company also introduced a facilitated booking service with a number of partners, including Air Canada.
