Online movie ticket star Fandango is a leader in mobile commerce when it comes to the percentage of total web sales that stem from m-commerce sites and apps. Nearly a quarter, 23%, of all tickets sold during the first quarter of 2012 were purchased by customers using the mobile channel.

Mobile played a major supporting role in what Fandango says was the best quarter in the company’s nearly 12-year history. In Q1 2012 there was a 127% year-over-year surge in ticket sales and a 58% jump in unique monthly visitors to a total of 33 million online and mobile. The company did not release total ticket sales figures.

“Mobile was a huge contributing factor to the 127% growth in ticket sales,” a Fandango spokesman says. “Fandango has always been about convenience, and mobile has added the utmost in convenience for moviegoers with things like GPS technology, where, with permission, the app can find out where you are and then show you the soonest showtimes at the nearest theaters. Mobile adds so much more to our numbers.”

In addition to mobile commerce, Fandango’s expanded exhibitor reach is pushing sales higher. The company increased the number of theaters for which it sells tickets by 19%, with recent deals with AMC Theatres, Regency Theatres and other chains.

Fandango, No. 30 in the Internet Retailer Mobile Commerce Top 300, also just launched a Facebook Timeline app dubbed “Movies with Friends.” The app has helped drive a significant amount of new traffic and fan engagement, Fandango says, with new social tools that allow Fandango Friends to share their movie activities in real time.

Fandango’s movie ticketing apps have been downloaded 24 million times, the company reports, and are available for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 mobile platforms.

Fandango last year started offering paperless mobile tickets, QR codes displayed in the app that are scanned by ticket takers wielding optical scanners. Conventional laser scanners cannot read codes on smartphones because the laser bounces off the screen. Fandango expects the number of theaters in its network that accept paperless mobile tickets will increase to between 4,000 and 5,000 this year.