With 5m total bookings, Airbnb plans aggressive international expansion

Airbnb’s latest milestone shows just how quickly the business is growing, as it topped 4 million total bookings over the past year, compared to the 1 million bookings it had wrapped up in all the years prior. That’s huge growth for a startup that’s just about five years old, and it shows the idea of apartment sharing and collaborative consumption in general is catching on.

Much of that growth is driven by an increasingly international user base, which is why Airbnb is investing heavily in facilitating adoption outside the U.S. The startup has more than 100,000 properties listed in 192 countries around the world. While the number of listings increased 166 percent over the year, the number of international listings grew to 70 percent of Airbnb’s database. More than 75 percent of all bookings included someone from abroad, whether they were international guests visiting the United States, or Airbnb users booking places to stay abroad.

As a result, Airbnb has been working hard on expanding internationally. In addition to its headquarters in San Francisco, the startup already has offices in Hamburg, Berlin, and London. But it plans for more offices around the world, including those in Barcelona, Copenhagen, Milan, Moscow, Paris, and São Paulo. Airbnb has also expanded its customer support services to include 24-hour customer support in 16 different languages and adding seven toll-free numbers globally. The company now has employees in seven time zones around the world.

Airbnb has raised a total of about $120 million since being founded in 2008, including a $112 million round last summer led by Andreessen Horowitz.

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