Skyscanner's revenues grew to £120 million last year off the back of a hungry Chinese market and a surge in mobile users

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Gareth Skyscanner

Skyscanner

Skyscanner cofounder and CEO Gareth Williams.

Skyscanner, the travel website that allows people to search for flights and hotels, announced on Friday that it grew its revenues to £120 million in 2015 - up 28% on the previous year.

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The Edinburgh-headquartered company - which hired an additional 280 staff across the world last year, growing its overall headcount to 770 - said the revenues were fuelled by an increase in mobile users and an increasing appetite for Skyscanner in Asia, notably China.

According to the company, the Skyscanner platform now gets 50 million monthly visitors, which is an increase of 48% on the previous year.

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Gross bookings for 2015 were $11.2 billion (£8.7 billion), up 49% compared to the prior year, and mobile web bookings grew by 24% year on year, comprising 42% of all conversions.

A lot of Skyscanner's growth is coming from the Asia-Pacific region. In China, Skyscanner grew 67% in 2015, where mobile visitors nearly doubled. Skyscanner did not reveal exact numbers for the region.

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Overall, mobile visitors grew 60% and now account for 59% of total visitors on to the platform.

"2015 was another strong year for Skyscanner, showing solid progress in our strategy of expansion beyond our home market, into mobile and beyond flights," said Gareth Williams, Skyscanner CEO and cofounder, in a statement. "Our first-half focus on investing in our product drove momentum for the business in the second half."

Skyscanner announced in January that it had secured £120 million in venture capital funding to help it accelerate its growth. The funding was raised at a valuation in excess of £1 billion.

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