Qunar, the Chinese metasearch service, has achieved a single-day record of 60,000 flight bookings via its mobile channel.
The all time high number was experienced during the New Year holiday in China.
Qunar also reported that its mobile hotel bookings reached 50% of total hotel bookings, and its mobile taxi-booking service Cheche expanded its coverage to over 42 cities in China.
Recently, Qunar integrated its mobile app with (online messaging service) WeChat's mobile payment system and launched voice recognition for hotel search. Qunar also launched a call center customer service in WeChat.
According to a survey by Enfodesk, about 64% of respondents named Qunar Travel as the most frequently used ticket-booking app for flight bookings, train-ticket bookings and tourist attraction-related bookings, followed by 54.5% for its closest competitor.
All eyes on mobile
In Q3 2013 earnings call, Qunar reported a $5.8 million mobile revenue, an increase of 386% year-on-year and representing almost 15% of total revenue.
As of September 30, 2013, Qunar has a total of about 47 million mobile users, compared to 16 million for the same period ending September 30, 2012.
China’s two other publicly listed travel brands Ctrip and eLong reported in their Q3 2013 earnings call that their core focus in going to be their mobile platform.
In China, mobile penetration among travellers has reached 98%, and the number of people accessing the internet via mobile surpassed desktop in 2012, according to PhoCusWright. By 2015, more than 20% of online travel bookings will be mobile transactions.
However, mobile travel bookings in China is at a nascent stage, accounting to $218.4 million. China (and India) markets will be the fastest growing mobile markets in APAC through 2015.
NB:Mobile image via Shutterstock.