After about a year of being iPhone only, the Airbnb app comes to Android this morning alongside a complete revamp of the Airbnb mobile features.
With over 500K downloads and 125k active users on iOS, and over 10% of its traffic coming through mobile, Airbnb mobile web genius Andrew Vilcsak tells me that the move to Android was inevitable, “The biggest complaint was that it wasn’t on Android, which currently holds 48% of the entire world’s market share.”
Vilcsak tells me that they made the mobile updates with international expansion in mind; Airbnb currently serves over 19,000 cities in 192 countries and the company expects their usership to double after today’s Android launch. “A host with a mobile app can respond two and a half times faster which means a substantially better guest experience.”
The Airbnb app will be available in five different languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Danish, Portuguese, Russian) compatible with over 100 Android devices on everything from Android 2.1 to Android 4.0.
The jump to Android comes with a refresh of the company’s web app as well, and now both Android and mobile web users can search for listings through their phone, book lodgings the night of, access their itinerary and host details. You can also browse through user profiles, message people through the app, accept and decline reservations, take pics of your property, in addition to keeping track of your guest schedule and setting up custom pricing.
Both the mobile web and the Android app will allow offline accessibility, “So even if you’re traveling through the Spanish countryside everything gets saved through your phone,” Vilcsak says.
These mobile updates are part of a larger series of product developments, Vilcsak hopes that the company can build out these already existing features and expand into more platforms and device coverage including Nokia phones, “The quicker people can communicate the better,” he says.
Airbnb presently has a $120 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, YCombinator, Keith Rabois and others. You can find the app in the Android market by searching for “Airbnb.”
