The online medium seems to be finally waking upto the mobile medium potential as the latter is increasingly assuming importance in new business plans of established portals. One such established travel portal, makemytrip.com is now all set to target the huge mobile subscriber base in India as it announced the launch of what it claims is a holistic m-commerce platform for mobile consumers.

Among a range of new applications the portal will now enable mobile subscribers to search, book, pay and even receive their ticket on their mobile phones at no additional cost.

The portal has tied-up with multiple players for its aggressive foray in the mobile space.

The company’s one such tie-up with mChek branded as ‘MakeMyTrip Anymobile’ requires the customer to send only an SMS ‘MakeMyTrip’ to 543219 following which a instructional menu appears on the screen of the mobile subscriber. The customer needs to have an account with mChek and the tie-up claims that such mobile subscribers will not be charged for sending SMS to book tickets.

MakeMyTrip has also aligned with Airtel to launch a dedicated WAP site for Airtel subscribers. The service allows Airtel subscribers with GPRS connection to have a one-click access to MakeMyTrip services on their mobile handsets.

Additionally the company has also tied-up with Nokia wherein Nokia NSeries range of mobile phones have a pre-built MakeMyTrip JAVA application that allows easy access of the portal on the mobile phones.

Mr. Sachin Bhatia, CMO & Co-Founder, MakeMyTrip.com, said, "This launch positions MakeMyTrip as the first travel Company to offer a true MCommerce platform for travelers in India. It is our biggest mobile initiative so far and strengthens the existing channels of access that we offer. Our mobile booking facility is now accessible to the user-base of 60 million Airtel subscribers. This development is also a triumph for our R&D division since the WAP application has been designed indigenously."

P.S. From the Editor: Though the development is a bit dated since the services are into operations since February we have covered the article only to highlight the growing importance or rather shift of conventional online portals to the mobile medium.