EDINBURGH, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Leading global travel search provider Skyscanner is acquiring Chinese metasearch company Youbibi.
The acquisition will provide Chinese travellers with one place to search for all their travel needs, bringing together Youbibi’s mainland China expertise with Skyscanner’s comprehensive coverage of international flights.
Gareth Williams, Skyscanner’s Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, comments:
“Since we established our China team in 2012, the number of visitors to our site and apps across the country has grown tenfold, yet we’re still only at the start of the growth opportunity we see here. This acquisition brings the best of both worlds with Skyscanner’s international coverage and Youbibi’s domestic travel search and intimate knowledge of the Chinese traveller. The acquisition takes us from being a strong international travel specialist in China to a truly global travel service provider for Chinese nationals, domestically and internationally.
“We have been incredibly impressed by the talented team at Youbibi. They share our dedication to both mobile and web innovation and we have some exciting plans for how we can develop products that make the travel planning journey even easier for travellers in China and further afield.”
Youbibi Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Steven Pang, adds:
“We built our website and app with the goal of making it as easy as possible for travellers across China to find their ideal holiday. We are proud of the technology that we have developed and, by bringing this together on our platform with Skyscanner’s global flight expertise, we believe we can create a really exciting travel search tool for all Chinese travellers. Our team is thrilled to become a part of Skyscanner and join their global travel journey.”
Skyscanner continues to expand its business across China and the APAC region. Following the establishment of its China office, monthly visitors to the site have increased by over 10 times over the last three years, driven by its unbiased, free travel search functionality. The APAC region accounts for a rapidly growing proportion of Skyscanner’s business, with 20% of all visitors currently coming from the region.
Founded in 2010, Youbibi specialises in comparing flights, hotels and package holidays in China. Youbibi will continue to operate as a subsidiary of Skyscanner focused on developing the best search product for the Chinese traveller. Its team of specialist engineers will continue to be based in Shenzhen, China. Skyscanner’s commercial and marketing hub for China will continue to be based in Beijing.
Financial details of the deal are not being announced.
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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 500 employees spanning 35 nationalities across six global offices – Edinburgh, Glasgow, Singapore, Beijing, Miami, Barcelona, Skyscanner places great emphasis on its global flight coverage, with search available in over 30 languages and 70 currencies.
- 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.
- Skyscanner operates under the brand name Tianxun in mainland China.
- For more information, visit our press office or our company blog.
About Youbibi
- Youbibi (which translates as ‘travel comparison’) is a travel metasearch company based in Shenzhen, China.
- It was founded in 2010 by Steven Pang, the current CEO, and has 20 employees.
- It offers travel search and deal comparison for flights, hotels and package holidays.
- Youbibi travel search is available in Chinese on the web, mobile web, iOS and Android.
