Trainline today reported an operating loss of £8 million and loss after of tax of £89 million, mainly due to costs associated with its stock market flotation earlier this year.
Results for the six months to August 31 show a 19% rise in ticket sales to £1.8 billion, with revenue rising by 29% to £129 million.
App downloads in the period increased by 59% to five million, with more than half coming from European markets. Total cumulative downloads increased to 28 million.
App share of transactions grew by 11 percentage points to 73% as a result.
“Together with increased use of etickets, this helped Trainline grow net ticket sales per customer across our UK consumer and international businesses,” the company said.
“As we grow demand and continuously improve the customer experience, we are persuading more customers to choose greener modes of transport.
“Recent research shows Trainline customers were twice as likely to have increased train travel over the last 12 months than non-customers.”
Trainline is also targeting “significant headroom” in the business-to-business and white label sub-segments.
CEO Clare Gilmartin said: “We are pleased to have achieved strong growth in the first half of our financial year and to have made good progress against our strategic priorities.
“This includes enhancing our user experience and championing mobile, which in turn accelerated the ongoing shift of customers from offline to online.
“We continue to focus on making rail and coach travel easier for customers worldwide, thereby encouraging a much greener way to travel.”
She added: “As most rail and coach tickets continue to be sold offline at the station, and as customers and governments commit to more environmentally friendly modes of travel, we see significant growth opportunities for Trainline over the long term.”