EDINBURGH, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global travel search site Skyscanner marked another year of rapid growth 2013, growing revenue by 96%, visitors by 100% as well as doubling mobile app downloads. This is the fastest revenue growth that Skyscanner has seen in three years and was driven in large part by the company’s mobile strategy and significant growth in global markets.
Skyscanner increased its revenue by 96% to £65.8 million ($108.6 million) in the year ending 31st December 2013. Users from around the world have more than doubled to reach 25 million unique visitors each month.
Key milestones in 2013 included:
- Acquisition of Barcelona-based hotel search technology company Fogg and development of Skyscanner's proprietary hotel search site– a significant step in Skyscanner’s strategy of expanding its travel offering into other important areas of its users’ travel plans. This put a proprietary hotel offering on the fast-track to complement Skyscanner’s existing flight and car rental services
- Secondary investment by Sequoia Capital in October, which valued Skyscanner at £500 million ($800 million) and gives the company access to a deep pool of experience
- Rapid entry into the Americas, including the US, Canada and Latin American markets. 2013 saw a 119% year on year increase in unique monthly visitors in the region
- Skyscanner opened a Miami hub office for the Americas region, established new offices in Glasgow and Barcelona and expanded offices in Edinburgh, Singapore and Beijing to accommodate its 200 new hires in 2013 as well as future staff
- Margaret Rice-Jones appointed as Chairman and Sir Michael Moritz joined the board
Globally, Skyscanner passed the milestone of 30 million downloads of its highly rated flight mobile app. The app was regularly rated the number one free travel app and was central to Skyscanner’s growth in 2013. Further mobile developments are planned across Skyscanner's product set in 2014.
The APAC region continued to be a strong driver of growth over the past 12 months, with a 141% increase in monthly visitors. Following the establishment of its Americas business, based in Miami, Skyscanner saw a 119% increase year on year in unique monthly visitors to the website and mobile app across the Americas. In the more established European markets, Skyscanner saw unique monthly visitors increase by an average of 64%.
Skyscanner created over 200 jobs in 2013. This doubled the number of staff across its global offices in Beijing, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Miami and Singapore to 400. The company plans to create a further 200 jobs this year, with a particular focus on engineering, to build on the company’s focus on technical innovation.
Shane Corstorphine, Skyscanner’s Chief Financial Officer, said: "This last year has proven to be our most successful to date and underlines the importance of offering a truly global travel search tool to travellers around the world. We've built a platform to continue to support rapid growth over the coming years and we're now investing heavily to ensure we can continue to provide a great service to users.
“Our growth has been predominantly driven by our flight search on both web and mobile platforms, reinforcing our position as Europe's leading flight search site, while seeing rapid growth in the Americas and particularly in APAC. With an increasing number of consumers booking their travel on the go, mobile will remain a key part of our strategy over the next 12 months and beyond.”
Gareth Williams, Skyscanner’s CEO and co-founder said: “Our focus so far has largely been around building the best global flight search site and we are now bringing the same technical innovation and global focus as we expand across other areas of their travel journey."
"Our goal is to make booking travel as simple and as effortless as possible. We are tackling this goal head on in order to realise our vision of creating the best web and mobile travel search experience."
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About Skyscanner
- Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site offering an unbiased, comprehensive and free flight search service as well as instant online comparisons for hotels and car hire.
- Having launched in 2003, it is now helping 25 million unique visitors each month to find the best deals, through powerful technology we have built across our website and mobile app.
- With more than 400 employees spanning 35 nationalities across six global offices – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Singapore, Beijing, Miami, Barcelona, Skyscanner places great emphasis on its global coverage, with search available in over 30 languages.
- Skyscanner’s highly-rated free mobile apps are available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Windows 8 devices and have been downloaded over 30 million times.
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