Amid increasing competition from Google, HopStop, the transit service which offers subway, bus, cab, walking and biking directions on mobile and Web, has informed us of a new milestone: the company has passed 3 million app downloads just six months after crossing the 2 million mark.
HopStop shares that its service is now launching in Australia and New Zealand, and is additionally expanding in both the UK and France. The company’s total reach now includes 500 cities in 7 countries.
Why the growth?
HopStop’s recent growth is, in part, thanks to Google Maps’ lost role as the default mapping app for iOS. With that change, iOS users who needed transit directions were left stranded, because Apple Maps didn’t provide such services. HopStop stepped in.
Even as Google regains noteworthy mindshare on iOS, HopStop’s growth is only accelerating; it took HopStop roughly 18 months to hit 1.25 million downloads, nine months to pass 2 million, and now six to pass 3 million.
With this in mind, HopStop CEO Joe Meyer tells us that his company is planning expansion in additional international cities and countries “on the near-term horizon.”
Google remains HopStop’s key competitor, and continues to place its own efforts into transit navigation. Just yesterday, the search giant began showing live transit departure times in NYC and Salt Lake City, along with service alerts in DC.
As of this past December, HopStop covers approximately 80 percent of the locations that Google Transit serves in the US, and HopStop’s strength in this space makes things interesting; it’s a prime acquisition target for Apple, which needs to reliably expand and improve its own mapping services. For Google, on the other hand, purchasing HopStop would be a defensive move, preventing future threats to Google Maps.
➤ HopStop for iPad, iPhone, Android via Google Play/Amazon & Windows Phone
Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.