Micromax invests in travel marketplace ixigo

Mobile phone manufacturer Micromax on Monday announced that it has made a strategic investment in mobile travel search marketplace ixigo.

Popular for its innovative travel apps, ixigo helps Indian travellers plan their trips, find the best train & bus services, book cheapest flights, cabs, hotels and more.

This investment would further reinforce Micromax’s foray into application services after having pioneered democratization of technology by delighting the consumers with its affordable and innovative product offerings. It will also give ixigo a reach of over 30 million incremental users over the next year.

Talking about the investment, Rahul Sharma, Co-founder, Micromax Informatics said, “Our vision is to seamlessly integrate innovative services into smart devices to create an ecosystem that is valuable for our users. We are really impressed with ixigo’s talented team & its mobile technology.”

Aloke Bajpai, CEO & co-founder, ixigo said – “We share a common vision of a connected ecosystem of travellers who can access & consume travel content ubiquitously on their phone and compare & book across a bouquet of travel service providers seamlessly. 80% of our travel & transportation queries and 50% of our transactions currently originate on mobile devices. This partnership with Micromax, the leading smartphone OEM in India, will strengthen our market leadership in mobile travel services for middle class users. We expect to quadruple our mobile user-base in the next 12 months.”