Smaato Reveals Inclusive Growth in Asian Mobile Advertising Market

Mobile advertising in Asia is set to realize its potential and tap into a landmark 1.11 billion app user market in 2015, twice as huge as compared to 2012. This growth is precipitated by the rise of smartphone ownership and mobile internet users. As highlighted by a new white paper commissioned by Smaato, one in five mobile users will own a smartphone by end of 2013, with mobile internet user market hitting the one billion mark by 2014.
 
This increase in the number of app users and smartphone owners is inducing a change in the mobile advertising market. Besides big brands that typically drive such growth with their large marketing budgets, smaller brands and mobile content companies, such as app developers, are also entering the scene. App developers can now be both advertisers themselves, to attract crowds to their apps, and content publishers, who monetize their apps by selling ad spaces within these apps.
 
This trend signals a shift toward a more levelled playing field for app developers and advertisers of all sizes. Such inclusive development of the mobile advertising market can be attributed to sophisticated mobile advertising technologies available these days that lower the barriers of entry for smaller brands and app developers.
 
One such technology is SOMA™, the largest mobile ad monetization platform, offered by Smaato. SOMA™, also known as “Smaato’s Open Mobile Advertising Platform”, allows advertisers and app developers to leverage its extensive market presence of more than 80 ad networks and 50, 000 developers in over 230 countries. SOMA™ optimizes more than 40 billion ad requests each month, and connects advertisers to developers whose apps can offer them relevant audiences. Advertisers are informed of actual audience statistics while app developers determine the pricing and availability, all of which takes place on SOMA™’s Real-Time Bidding (RTB) Platform. This not only yields transparency but also economic efficiencies for both the seller and bidder. App developers can better monetize and attract eCPM for their inventories by adjusting pricing based on bidding trends, while advertisers can optimize their ad spend to maximise ROI.
 
“Asia’s growth momentum is bound to pick up with the decreasing cost of smart devices and the development of telecommunication infrastructure alongside the next wave of 4G mobile standards,” said Smaato Managing Director of Asia Pacific, Marcus Tan. “Smaato is dedicated to constantly innovate and deliver the best mobile advertising technologies to Asia through our global connections, to actualize mobile advertising’s largest value in Asia.”
 
Other key highlights of the white paper, Asia’s Mobile Advertising Marketplace Has Gone Full Circle, commissioned by Smaato with latest research released by mobileSQUARED:

• Mobile subscription in Asia will amount to 2.57 billion in 2012, equivalent to one-third of world’s population.
• Mobile banner ad spend will increase to US$ 2.6 billion in 2015 from US$ 1.85 billion in 2012.
• Number of app users will rise to 1.11 billion by the end of 2015, equivalent to 32% of total mobile subscriptions and 77.6% of mobile internet users.
• Approximately 16% of mobile advertising campaigns in Asia are rich media-based campaigns, with a few countries such as Australia and Japan, whose mobile advertising campaigns are 40-45% rich media-based.
• The click-through rate of rich media-based mobile advertising campaigns is approximately 0.8%, at least double that of standard mobile banner ad campaigns.

The white paper is available for download at http://www.smaato.com/whitepaper/
 
About Smaato, Inc. 
 
Smaato provides a one-stop shop to mobile app developers to maximize mobile advertising revenues. Smaato provides Ads for Apps, and operates the leading mobile advertising optimization platform. More than 50,000 fast-growing app developers and publishers use Smaato to monetize their content in over 230 countries.
 
Smaato's unique feature is the aggregation of 80+ leading ad networks and DSPs to maximize mobile advertising revenues. Through an open API and the widest range of SDKs, Smaato technology can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, app developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.
 
Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, Singapore Infocomm Industry (SITF), Singapore IT Federation and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2012, 2011, 2009 & 2007), is one of the AlwaysOn Global 250 winners in the Mobile category (2011) and was recently named a "company to watch in 2010" by Financial Analyst company GP Bullhound, among other awards.
 
Smaato Inc. is based in San Francisco, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. Smaato's European office is in Hamburg, Germany and the Asia-Pacific team works out of Singapore.