Skyscanner, the leading global travel search company providing search of flights, hotels and car hire around the world is acquiring Hungarian mobile application development firm Distinction, a company that earlier this year took 1st place in the Rising Star category in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Central Europe report 2014.
“This acquisition is an amazing opportunity for our team to use everything we have learned in working with global brands to craft the future of online mobile travel as part of Skyscanner. Having worked closely with Skyscanner's product teams since 2011, we're thrilled to have the opportunity to focus our efforts within such a great organisation” - said Balint Orosz, Co-founder and CEO of Distinction.
The acquisition brings the experience of the team of 30 talented, award-winning designers and developers to Skyscanner's in-house team. Distinction's office in Budapest will become Skyscanner's main mobile development hub, where the existing team will continue to be based. This will be supported by the creation of additional roles to drive the company's mobile growth across Skyscanner's global offices.
Skyscanner worked very closely with Distinction for the past 3 years on its mobile applications that enable travellers to search hundreds of thousands of hotels all over the world to find the best price for their preferred hotel.
“The team at Distinction, led by Balint Orosz and Akos Kapui, are some of the best app developers that I've ever come across. In working closely with them on the design of our hotel app, we saw how focused they were on the user experience. They have built a fantastic company with a great culture and, as part of our combined team, will focus on creating the mobile travel assistant that future travellers will need” - said Gareth Williams, Co-founder and CEO of Skyscanner.
Skyscanner has expanded its range of apps over the past 12 months, adding car hire and, most recently, hotels to its successful multi-platform flight app to enable travellers anywhere in the world to plan their travel on the go. Together, the range of Skyscanner apps have been downloaded over 30 million times and are available in over 30 languages.
