ixigo Archives » nextbigwhat

News

ixigo launches ‘offline mode’ on its Trains App for Android users

ixigo has introduced ‘offline mode’ on its trains app for android users.

Now, travelers can stay updated with their live train running status, search for trains between stations, set station alarms, search for train routes and receive booking reminders, even offline.

It was a big challenge to keep the app light by compressing an additional 100MB offline train data, within the 10MB size of the app. The offline mode will provide millions of Indian train travellers the desired train information, with or without an internet connection.” [Rajnish Kumar, CTO & co-founder, ixigo]

These features have been introduced keeping in mind internet connectivity problems people face, especially during the train journey.

Resource: Learn how ixigo designed for Bharat market.

https://www.nextbigwhat.com/building-for-bharat-ixigo-lessons-297/

Tech

Travel Search Marketplace ixigo Launches Inspire, A Chrome Plugin That Finds The Cheapest Deals

ixigo has launched ixigo inspire – a Chrome extension that inspires travellers and instantly compares travel deals across travel sites. Earlier in beta, the plugin has now been fully rolled out to ixigo’s user base and works on the desktop version of Chrome.

ixigo’s inspire plugin opens each new Google Chrome tab and helps you find the cheapest deals on hotels and flights. While you browse on any online travel website, ixigo automatically brings you the best deals available real-time, no matter which travel website they are on. The extension enhances the traveller’s browsing experience, by adding unique features like PNR lookups and

ixigo Co-Founder, Rajnish Kumar said, – “ixigo aims at enhancing the end to end travel experience for our users. Not just do we want to provide you with the best travel deals, we also want to inspire and motivate you to travel. Each new browser tab now refreshes and informs you about a wonderful new destination to visit. At launch, we already have over 2 lakh users getting inspired to travel everyday, and we expect this to become the default tab for 5 million travelers by the end of the year.”

In addition to all its existing features the plugin also allows you to refer and earn cashback coupons that can be used on the ixigo travel app. Going forward, the extension will be coming out with an array of features that will help you book your travel.

Digital India

Travel Search App ixigo Now Lets You Book Cabs Even Without Internet And GPS

ixigo, a travel search app has announced the launch of “1-Tap Cab Booking” on the ixigo cabs app that allows booking the nearest available cab in one tap of a button on the user’s home screen.

Currently available for Android, 1-Tap Cab Booking will work even in places without a stable internet connection, such as airports, railway stations, bus stations and even while the user is en-route to his destination.

Rajnish Kumar, ixigo, CTO & Co-Founder said – “Opening multiple cab apps to compare ETAs & pricing, and then booking a cab consumes time, specially when you are at a place with weak Internet & GPS signals. On average it takes a minimum of 20 seconds to book a cab on any of the existing cab apps. With 1-Tab Cab Bookings, we allow users to book their nearest cab in just 3 seconds by tapping and holding a button on their home screen. The best part is that this feature works even without internet and GPS. No more stress when you land at the airport or as your train is arriving at your station. Just 1-Tap and you are done!”

ixigo uses a combination of intelligence about the user’s location through existing PNR confirmations on a user’s phone and SMSes for when the internet connection doesn’t work to seamlessly book a cab for the user.

ixigo cabs app also intelligently prompts the users prior to their journey to the station or airport and also when they have just landed or are about to reach, claims the company.

Digital India

Ixigo Launches App Discovery Platform For Train Travellers

Ixigo has launched an app discovery platform that lets brands reach out to train travellers contextually and helps them discover apps and deals relevant to them.

Over 20 brands including Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm, Freecharge, PepperTap, DineOut, BlaBlaCar, UrbanClap, Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, Spicejet, TravelKhana and Twigly have signed up for ixigo’s app discovery platform to market their apps and deals to Indian train travellers.

Ixigo, CEO & Co-Founder, Aloke Bajpai said, “We have delivered over 10 million daily impressions, 1200+ daily app installs and 200+ daily transactions cumulated across our partners in just the first week of the launch! Our goal is to help travellers discover high quality apps contextually. Also, for partners it’s a great marketing channel with amazing targeting possibilities. They are helping our travellers recharge on the go, book a meal for their journey, and to discover content, services and products that they may want to order during, before or after their journey. We are now evaluating more partnerships in the news, music and entertainment categories.”

It is currently available only on Android.

Ixigo Launches ‘Super Value Hotels’ Feature That Aggregates Top Budget-friendly Stays

Ixigo’s ‘Super Value Hotels’ is a new meta-search feature that lists curated low-budget hotels on its website. It has a collection of 2500 budget hotels across 80 cities in India with room-rates ranging from Rs. 599 to Rs. 2499.

The feature will list a standardized collection of hotels that provides amenities such as clean beds, air-conditioning, TV, a good location, room-service, breakfast and Wi-Fi at a pocket-friendly price, says ixigo.

Deals are compared across branded budget hotel providers such as Oyo rooms, Wudstay, Zo Rooms, Vista Rooms as well as independent hotels in popular locations in all major cities of India.

It also lists the cheapest rates across 20+ hotel-booking websites such as Booking.com, Makemytrip.com, Hotels.com, Goibibo.com and Agoda.com. Travelers.

According to Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder & CEO, ixigo, the feature will be rolling out on their mobile apps very soon with expansion plans in more cities and ‘super value hotels’ by December.

The company recently received funding from Micromax.

Ixigo Acqui-Hires Inter-City Cab Aggregator Rutogo

Mobile travel marketplace Ixigo has acquired inter-city cabs aggregator Rutogo for an undisclosed amount.

The Rutogo team will join Ixigo to aid the building of a marketplace for inter-city taxi owners and vendors.

This is the second acquisition Ixigo has made in the past one month, acquiring online community Indian Backpackers on Aug 14.

Both acquisitions follow an investments from Micromax back in June, with the goal of growing its user base from 6.5mn to 30mn by 2016.

Rutogo had built a marketplace for travel taxis with over 100 taxi vendors from across the country in just a few months. The acquisition made sense for Ixigo as it too was looking to expand its offering in the intracity and inter-city taxi booking space.

Ixigo says it will launch its outstation taxi booking service in the coming weeks and will also tie up with other taxi aggregators in the inter-city taxi space.

The company’s plans is to include taxi’s as an alternative to bus, train and air travel and already has a meta cab and taxi search app which currently lists only intra-city cabs, but will now include inter-city cab options.

ixigo acqui-hires the Indian Backpacker, community of budget travelers

ixigo has acquihired IndianBackpacker.com, a leading community for budget travelers, for an undisclosed amount.

As a part of the deal, Akshay Chhugani, Founder & CEO of The Indian Backpacker will also be joining ixigo as “Head, Traveller Communities”.

A travel enthusiast since he was 16, Akshay has stayed at Ashrams, trekked to the hills, tried out local street food at small towns and made new friends from across the globe. In a short time, he made IndianBackpacker.com a credible source of information and bookings for backpackers coming to India.

His passion was to popularize India as a backpacking destination and to create awareness about the beauty, culture and heritage of this country. He has earlier worked with WNS as a travel expert for Travelocity.com. Akshay’s previous projects also include working with companies like Exposure Media Marketing (which publishes Selling World Travel magazine), Eventus India and Aegis Global Vantedge. Apart from that he has Volunteered actively with Yuvraj Singh Foundation, YouWeCan and was heading all their Alliances and Communications.

ixigo recently received investment from Micromax and is looking to grow five-fold to reach over 30 million monthly active mobile users by the end of 2016.

Ixigo Launches PNR Prediction Feature For Its Trains And Hotels App

Travel marketplace Ixigo has announced the launch of a PNR prediction feature for its ‘trains & hotels’ app.

Users will now be able to get near accurate predictions of whether their ticket on any train will confirm or not.

The feature also shows the probability of a ticket getting confirmed if the booking has already been made, giving users the option to decide whether to make alternate travel arrangements.

Ixigo claims its has mined over 10 million PNRs over the last two years making its more accutate than other services on the market.

The push to launch the feature was driven by users making over 50,000 PNR status checks and nearly 200,000 train information requests on the Ixigo app every day.

In order to make the predictions, the company employs machine learning algorithms which currently are at 90% accuracy and will soon achieve 95% accuracy.

Apart from predicting PNR status, users can also make budget hotel bookings, cab bookings, packages, station alarms, platform numbers and coach positions of trains through the app.

Micromax Invests in ixigo

In its pursuit to create a connected mobile services ecosystem, Micromax has made a strategic investment in ixigo, the mobile travel search & marketplace.

Popular for its travel apps, ixigo helps Indian travelers plan their trips, find the best train & bus services, book cheapest flights, cabs, hotels and more. This investment will give ixigo a reach of over 30 million incremental users over the next year.

“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. We look forward to working closely with them to build on-demand and one-click travel experiences for Micromax consumers. We will be announcing more such partnerships over the next few months to accelerate our journey into services.” [Rahul Sharma, Co-founder, MicromaxInformatics]

Micromax had announced last month that it will be making investments of 0.5-20 million dollars in over 20 startups in the coming year.

– Micromax earlier invested in Healthifyme and has also partnered with MoFirst for local language support.

For this objective, Micromax has also set up an M&A team which has been actively sourcing and working with startups across major technology markets such as Silicon Valley, Europe, Israel and India to bring in the best products and capabilities.

A very good learning from its ace competitor, Xiaomi?

ixigo Launches ixigo Cabs, A Meta Cab And Taxi Search App

ixigo has launched a new app named “ixigo cabs” that aggregates cab information from different apps and helps Indian travellers find the nearest taxis and cabs around them anywhere in India.
In addition to searching all major online cab aggregator apps, ixigo cabs also searches 250+ offline taxi service providers across 100 towns in India, ixigo cabs is all set to change the way people have been taking a taxi till now.
This competes with Scoot app, and we really wonder if Meru/Ola (no Uber yet) will let ixigo take the customer/discovery process away from them (and NOT revoke the API access).
– Download the ixigo cab app from here.