• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 10, 2012

Since launching mobile ticketing last fall, Fandango says up to half its users are bypassing ticket booths and kiosks to buy tickets via mobile at the 1,200 screens where the service is available. The offering allows customers to have movie tickets sent to their phones as mobile barcodes, which they then can then take directly to a theater ticket-taker for scanning.

Fandango said it plans to roll out the service to another 1,000 screens this year. The company sells tickets to 16,500 screens overall. “Mobile Ticket is turning out to be one of our most popular products,” says Jessica Yi, chief product officer of Fandango, in a release today.

Fandango’s average monthly mobile traffic increased 59% in 2011, reaching as high as 9 million unique visitors per month, and a 73% year-over-year increase in mobile ticket sales year-to-date. The company has previously enabled mobile purchases via its mobile site and app, but those required users to print out tickets at home or through a kiosk.