CellPoint Mobile’s mobile-first technology increases revenue opportunities for airlines

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, July 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Ethiopian Airlines, the largest aviation group in Africa and SkyTrax certified global airline, is partnering with CellPoint Mobile (www.cellpointmobile.com), a leading provider of sales and payment-side technology solutions for the worldwide travel sector, to provide more payment options and an improved mobile user experience to its passengers.

By partnering with CellPoint Mobile, Ethiopian Airlines is elevating the reach, effectiveness and efficiency of their mobile sales channel, a key driver of both flight and ancillary revenue. The carrier will also be able to add many new alternative payment methods (APMs) to its mobile app that resonate with its passengers, firstly with AliPay and WeChat Pay, China’s dominant APMs. With this partnership, Ethiopian Airlines hopes to capture an even larger share of Africa’s international travel market, which reached approximately 18 million travelers in 2017 with Chinese tourists exceeding 11.6 million, a nearly 50% growth rate per year since 2010.

In addition to better serving its global base, Ethiopian Airlines is also positioned to deepen its presence on the African continent by embracing a mobile-first payment strategy. Mobile commerce is an important growth vector in Africa, which experienced a 344% increase in mobile phone usage from 2007-2016, and has a sizable population that relies on mobile phones to make payments and receive money. In South Africa, for instance, nearly a quarter of the population have shopped online, and travel is the second most popular type of purchase (45%).

“We want to make the mobile payment process as accessible and easy as possible for all our customers,” said Miretab Teklaye, Digital Director of Ethiopian Airlines. “We have made significant investments in technology to create a seamless user experience within our branded app. CellPoint Mobile gives us the flexibility we’ve been searching for to add the payment methods we need, quickly and easily, and to advise us as we continuously improve the profitability of our growing digital channel.”

With mobile-first technology that is built specifically for the mobile environment, not simply adapted to existing legacy systems, CellPoint Mobile enables airlines and other travel merchants to keep up with the pace of digital innovation and maximize revenue opportunities from their mobile-first customers.

“We are thrilled that Africa’s flag carrier has selected us to be their global payments partner,” says Ciaran Wilson, Senior Sales and Account Director for MEA at CellPoint Mobile. “We look forward to working with the Ethiopian Airlines team as they expand the revenue-generating capabilities of their mobile channel. For CellPoint Mobile, a full member of the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), this partnership reiterates the strategic focus the company has placed on the African market.”

The solution CellPoint Mobile is providing to Ethiopian Airlines ? the Velocity payment platform ? is a full merchant-side payment control environment built specifically for the travel industry. Velocity’s comprehensive platform enables immediate access to multiple PSPs, acquirers and global consumer wallets and APMs. Velocity also features a PCI DSS Level 1 certified card vault and advanced fraud monitoring.

CellPoint Mobile is working throughout Africa to assist airlines in maximizing revenue opportunities from their mobile-first customers by quickly reducing transactional friction, increasing mobile look-to-book ratios, and boosting incremental revenues throughout the entire passenger journey.