Expedia Acquires Mobiata, Creator of Mobile Travel Apps

Expedia, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Mobiata, creator of mobile travel applications including FlightTrack. The deal marks Expedia's most significant investment to date in addressing the mobile travel market, and accelerates the company's ability to enable mobile travel shopping and booking across multiple platforms.

“With the pace at which mobile traffic to Expedia sites is exploding, we wanted the right team to help us address the sizable opportunity swiftly and successfully,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia, Inc. “There's simply no better company out there doing mobile travel apps with the same level of design sensibility and utility as Mobiata.”

In its first two years since it was founded in 2008, Mobiata has developed a host of best selling travel apps, including FlightTrack, which has ranked a Top 5 best-selling iPhone travel app for 18 months straight, best-selling itinerary manager app TripDeck and best-selling hotel booking app HotelPal.

Mobile traffic currently accounts for approximately 4 percent of all visitors to Expedia.com, with mobile bookings up in 2010 nearly five times over the previous year. “Mobile and travel are just made for each other,” said Joe Megibow, Expedia’s VP of global analytics and optimization.