With mobile ticket sales accounting for more than 40 percent of Fandango’s total ticket sales, the company continues to ramp up its mobile strategy, including bringing out a new iPhone application for iOS 7.

The new app promises iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users a richer movie discovery experience and faster ticketing. One new feature is the Showtime Countdown which presents users with a front-and-center visual reminder counting down the minutes to showtime after they purchase tickets on Fandango.

“The ‘Showtime Countdown’ feature captures the excitement a film fan feels as he or she is waiting for the film to start,” said Jessica Yi, chief product officer at Fandango, Los Angeles.

“Once you have your purchased your ticket on a mobile device, you’re presented with a front-and-center visual reminder that counts down the minutes before showtime – and you can imagine how popular this feature will be for highly-anticipated movies like ‘Thor: The Dark World,’ ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’  and ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,’” she said.

Full-screen design
Mobile continues to be a quickly-growing platform for Fandango, which has seen mobile ticket sales increase 63 percent year-over-year. Additionally, the number of video views across mobile platforms is increasing by 18 percent month-over-month.

The company’s mobile app for moviegoers has been downloaded more than 38 million times across various platforms.

The new iPhone app was designed to take advantage of iOS 7’s benefits and design aesthetics. It features a full-screen design and a virtual marquee of the day’s top films that includes showtimes at favorite or nearby theaters as well as direct access to movie ticketing.

Other features include new predictive search that makes it easier to look up movies, theaters, movie stars and filmmakers.

Additionally, app users have instant access to top movie trailers, celebrity interviews and Fandango’s original movie recommendation video series, “Weekend Ticket,” from the app’s front page.

“In this new app, it’s all about the Spotlight where your showtimes and ticketing are presented to you front and center,” Ms. Yi said.

“It knows your favorite theaters, nearest showtimes and puts the tickets at your fingertips,” she said. “The new Spotlight feature makes Fandango the must-have app for moviegoers, as it’s your complete guide to the weekend, offering everything from showtimes, ticketing, trailers and clips and helpful genre filters to our weekly movie recommendation series ‘Weekend Ticket’ and mobile ticket barcode scanning.”

Nearby theaters
The app also includes a “Go Now” feature offering one-tap access to movies playing at nearby theaters, a movie genre filter sorted by family, comedy, action, drama and horror films as well as exclusive video galleries, special offers and sweepstakes that are unique to mobile.

The Fandango app enables moviegoers to rate and review movies directly from the app and share their opinions with other Fandango users via Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

Moviegoers can also access saved credit cards, purchase history, ticket details, theater loyalty cards and their Favorite Theaters and My Movies each time they sign in to their Fandango account.

“We are the only ticketing app with access to the vast majority of the nation’s movie theaters, with 22,000 screens across the country,” Ms. Yi said.

“We’re making it even easier to get tickets on mobile, and an increasing number of our consumers only access Fandango via their mobile devices,” she said.

“For many Fandango users, it’s ‘mobile’ first, as that’s the only platform they use. Mobile is offering more conveniences to moviegoers and enabling spontaneity.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York