Fandango reports hike in movie ticket sales via mobile

Movie ticketing and information destination Fandango has just reported its biggest growth quarter in the company's history thanks, in part, to the increasing use of mobile to make movie ticket purchases.

by Helen Leggatt

After persuading the U.S.'s second-largest movie theatre chain to join them, Fandango now represents about 70% of the online and mobile movie ticketing space in the U.S.

Their second-quarter growth is the biggest in the company's history. Overall there was a 28% increase in ticket sales and a 26% increase in web traffic.

According to Fandango, over a quarter (27%) of its ticket sales come via the company's mobile site and apps. Their apps have been downloaded 25 million times and mobile downloads are up 49% year-on-year. Mobile purchases are up 107% year-on-year.

"Fandango's over-arching goal has always been to make movie-going easy," said Jessica Yi, chief product officer at Fandango. "To that end, we aim to provide movie showtimes, tickets, theater amenities and directions, fan and critic reviews and other helpful info wherever consumers are - and mobile has clearly emerged as one of the top channels for getting that info. This is why we offer mobile apps created for virtually every mobile device, which have now seen more than 25 million downloads."

Fandango makes its money by charging a commission on ticket sales and selling ads.

Earlier this year, Juniper Research forecast that the number of tickets delivered to mobile phones worldwide will more than quadruple to 23 billion by 2016, compared with 4 billion tickets estimated to have been delivered during 2011.