Skyscanner, the travel metasearch startup, and Yahoo Japan, a web portal, are planning to launch Skyscanner Japan.
Yahoo Japan opted for Skyscanner's metasearch instead of home-grown Travel.jp or Priceline Group's Kayak.
Skyscanner will hold a 51% majority stake of Skyscanner Japan, which will run autonomously, with its own Tokyo office, product development operation, and a CEO, yet to be hired.
A product and engineering team will create a relevant search experience at the skyscanner.jp site but more promiently for Yahoo Japan -- first for travel metasearch on its desktop portal, and then for its apps.
Products, features, and interfaces developed at Skyscanner Japan will also be fed back into the global platform of the Edinburgh-based startup, which reported revenues of £93.4 million last fiscal year.
Tnooz interviewed Skyscanner CEO Gareth Williams about the deal.
How much will be invested?
"Both companies will put in a combined $2.5 million into Skyscanner Japan."
Last year, visitors to Skyscanner in Japan grew by 40%. Why not enhance your existing Japanese localised site on your own?
"A few benefits. Being integrated into the most popular search engine in Japan has a long-term benefit to the growth of what Skyscanner can do in that market.
We have more than 1,200 direct connections with airlines and online travel agencies. This move shows how we can power major horizontal players like web portals with integrated functionality that can't be found elsewhere at lightning speed.
We will soon have more announcements of partners along a similar model."
You recently announced that Skyscanner will be powering the international search of Hipmunk, a San Francisco startup that until now has focused on customers in the domestic US market with its travel metasearch platform. Why partner with Hipmunk?
"Hipmunk has been a pleasure to work with. In the US market, they brought interesting, creative, and excellent ideas to the booking of travel.
In terms of competition, I always view it as such a gigantic market that there is space for most of us."
Rapid APAC growth
Skyscanner's CFO said in February that Asia-Pacific could become half of the company's business in a relatively short time.
In a separate June announcement, Skyscanner for Business’ APIs will power the travel metasearch results of TripHobo, India’s largest travel itinerary planning portal.
Fun facts: Skyscanner claims 35 million monthly unique visitors, while Yahoo Japan claims 80 million daily unique visitors. Japan is the world's third largest travel market, says Phocuswright, a consultancy.
Last year Skyscanner acquired Youbibi, a Chinese travel search company, which it has rebranded as Tianxun, the name for Skyscanner in China. The deal helped boost Skyscanner's Chinese monthly unique visitors to more than 1 million a month.
Monthly visits to its APAC sites grew 55% in 2014 and on mobile by 86%. Almost 30% of its APAC traffic is on a mobile device (tablet or mobile), higher than other Skyscanner regions.
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