Skyscanner Takes Off in Philippines and Across Asia-Pacific

SINGAPORE, March 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Six months on from opening its regional headquarters in Singapore, world leading travel search company Skyscanner is seeing strong growth in Philippines and Asia-Pacific as a whole with traffic increases of up to 400 per cent in key markets.  

Ewan Gray, Director for Asia Pacific, says:

"Growth in our primary target markets including Philippines has really taken off since we opened our Asia-Pacific headquarters.  This speed of growth is something we've only seen before in Russia, where we went from a standing start to our second biggest market with over 2 million visits per month in only a couple of years."

"We expect to see this pace continue with the launch of low cost airlines in Asia.  When you add that to the rapid growth of new channels in Asia-Pacific, where people are the most enthusiastic adopters of social media, it's a really exciting mix.  And with more people visiting us from phones, tablets and our mobile apps, mobile internet sessions are outstripping main site sessions for the very first time.  That's quite different from Europe, where roughly one in three users accesses our site through mobile."  

Skyscanner is one of only a few truly one-stop travel search sites available globally that has, unlike most other industry players, independent relations with airline operators and online travel agents rather than relying on centralised data.  Comparing prices direct from the airlines with online travel agents, Skyscanner shows results for over 1000 airlines, including low cost airlines and flagship carriers.  Skyscanner's revolutionary search technology and flexible interface - sites are available in many different languages and currencies - allow every user to search for flights in precisely the way they want.

Gareth Williams, CEO and co-founder of Skyscanner, says:

"We are all about saving millions of people time and money with a comprehensive, intelligent and simple travel search experience.  When it comes to Asia-Pacific, it is remarkable that nine out of ten of the most highly travelled air routes are in the region.  And, it is striking that the diversity of the marketplace works to our strengths in a very similar way to Europe."

About Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a leading travel search site providing instant online comparisons for millions of flights on over a thousand airlines, as well as car hire and hotels

Follow Skyscanner on Twitter and Facebook

Notes to editors

1. Skyscanner flight comparison app downloads are currently at over 6 million.
2. Skyscanner is available in 29 languages including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa Indonesian, Bahasa Malay and Tagalog, and over 70 currencies.
3. The 75 million searches per month on Skyscanner have generated downstream revenues of approximately US$2 billion for airline partners in the last 12 months.
4. In revenue terms, the group expects to top the £30 million (US$47 million) mark for 2012, representing over 50 per cent year-on-year growth against 2011.
5. Skyscanner employs 130 staff at its European (Edinburgh, Scotland) and Asia-Pacific (Singapore) offices.