Skyscanner reports 400% annual growth in APAC; expands Singapore office
Growth in site traffic across APAC fuelled by mobile apps
One year after opening its regional headquarters in Singapore, fast growing travel search site Skyscanner has moved to a new larger premises with the potential to double its headcount to accommodate surging annual growth of up to 400% across the region.
Much of the company’s growth has been driven by the use of the company’s suite of free mobile apps which have now been downloaded over 11 million times across the globe. In some APAC markets, visits to the Skyscanner site via mobile devices is as high as 50% of total traffic - matching that of the traditional desktop website and a clear sign that travellers are increasingly accessing the web via mobile devices. Traffic to Skyscanner in APAC now makes up more than 15% of the sites’ 30m visits per month.
Skyscanner now employs 12 nationalities at its Singapore base covering all areas of APAC region and also recently opened an office in Beijing, China, where it recently signed a deal with no.1 Chinese search engine Baidu to display Skyscanner results directly on the results page after a user searches for international flights.
According to Ewan Gray, Skyscanner’s Director for APAC who is based in Singapore, “Our site provides quick price comparisons and lets travellers book directly with their preferred airlines or hotels, at no charge. We’re hugely pleased with how fast we’ve grown since we opened our base here in APAC and the rate of growth here is now surpassing that of many European markets. We fully expect this trajectory to continue and we plan to capitalise on this progress over the next few years by expanding further across APAC.”
Gray, who was previously Skyscanner’s Head of Sales in the UK, has played a large part in driving the company’s global expansion, building commercial partnerships with airlines, online travel agents and other partners internationally. “The relationships we have with airlines and OTAs are incredibly important to us and are founded on sending them highly qualified referrals from customers confident they have found the best travel deal available.”
Skyscanner plans to expand its workforce in Singapore with further hires in Marketing, Technical and Commercial areas of the business in addition to bolstering its team of specialist Market Development Managers for the APAC region.
