Movie ticket vendor Fandango’s commerce-enabled Android application has surpassed 1.5 million downloads since its launch at the beginning of the year.

The Android application is Fandango’s second-most-downloaded application after the version for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. The movie ticketing giant also has a mobile Web site and applications for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Palm’s WebOS.

“These days, moviegoers are attached at the hip to their mobile devices,” said Ted Hong, chief marketing officer of Fandango, Los Angeles. “Fandango wants to make going to the movies as easy as possible, and we’d like to be available on all relevant mobile platforms as an added convenience for consumers.

“The Fandango apps have the same basic features, but are tailored to take advantage of the specific differences in the operating systems,” he said. “All of our apps are designed for movie lovers on the go.”

Fandango offers the ability to select a film, plan where and when to see it and buy tickets in advance. The company, a unit of Comcast Interactive Media, has a mobile Web site at http://mobile.fandango.com.

The company has continued to ramp up its mobile initiatives this year.

In February, Fandango tapped mobile ad network Apptera to develop and operate 1-800-Fandango, an interactive voice recognition movie show time and mobile ticketing service (see story).

In March, the company debuted a mobile ticketing program where consumers can get movie tickets sent as bar codes to their mobile devices (see story).

In May, the average click-through rate of Fandango’s commerce-enabled Iron Man 2 mobile video ads surpassed 6 percent—more than eight times as effective as the average PC Internet video ad (see story).

Android growing briskly
Fandango’s mobile commerce strategy is to aim for ubiquity, thus it supports four smartphone operating systems with downloadable applications, in addition to its mobile Web site (see story).

The company’s Android application is a key pillar in its mobile platform. Here is a screengrab:

“Android is one of the fastest-growing smartphone platforms and we want to make sure that Android users can get access to our showtimes, ticketing, trailers and clips and movie information,” Mr. Hong said.

While Mr. Hong declined to speculate about how big Android could possibly get, his company’s Android application is growing in popularity, while its iPhone application has seen nearly 6 million downloads.

“We’re not in the business of making platform predictions,” Mr. Hong said.

“We’ve seen more than 1.5 million downloads of the Fandango Android app since its launch earlier this year, and it is our second-most-downloaded app, with the iPhone ranking first,” he said.

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Commerce Daily