Mike Downey is VP, Business Development, at OpenX. Here he discusses the recent deal signed with Samsung, and the roll-out of the in the APAC market.

What will the AdHub partnership look like in the APAC region?

The Samsung AdHub Market (Market) will launch later this year and will be a major new private advertising exchange specifically for global mobile inventory, including smartphones and tablets.

The Market will not be limited to the APAC region, but will be open to mobile inventory buyers globally, including those in North America and Europe. As such, the Samsung AdHub Market will offer an innovative gateway into unique worldwide mobile inventory.

OpenX’s leading marketplace technology platform, which handles hundreds of billions of ad transactions per month, will power the exchange. This partnership builds upon OpenX’s extensive experience in the APAC region. We have been operating in Japan since 2011 through a partnership with cci-Dentsu.

What inventory will you have on the AdHub exchange? Will be all from Samsung domains on mobile? Is it app inventory or pure mobile display?

The new exchange will feature mobile inventory from third party mobile developers and Samsung Electronics owned and operated applications built on the Samsung AdHub platform.

The exchange will enable advertisers worldwide to purchase this inventory within a closed marketplace environment. Similar to Apple’s iAd’s program, the AdHub exchange covers app inventory not mobile web. Advertisers will have the opportunity to bid on any of the popular mobile ad unit sizes and types including MRAID compliant rich media ads.

Will this be available to buy through the OpenX exchange? How much volume are we looking at?

Yes, through OpenX Market. With Samsung Electronics’s global leadership in smartphones and mobile technologies, we expect the volume to be significant. When you look at predictions that suggest mobile advertising revenue is projected to grow to $20.6 billion by 2015, it’s likely that an extremely rapid acceleration is going to occur. We’re very pleased that Samsung Electronics chose OpenX in order to provide the technology to match the scale that will likely occur in this marketplace.

Will this inventory be made available to everyone in the market - DSPs, ad nets etc?

This inventory will not be available to everyone. It’s a private market in which Samsung directly approves all demand partners. OpenX is introducing select demand partners to Samsung and facilitating a direct relationship between the demand partner and Samsung with OpenX technology as backbone of the private exchange.

Given the lack of a universal cookie in mobile, how will buyers drive performance in mobile display?

The lack of a universal cookie is somewhat offset in mobile by the availability of precise location, device, and connectivity characteristics which are often used in buying decisions. The lack of a universal cookie in mobile is certainly a problem that needs to be addressed by the mobile industry to allow for growth in audience based buying and there are some unique solutions such as device fingerprinting that might offer a PII-free alternative.

With the recent deprecation of UDID by Apple, we've seen heightened momentum behind solutions. It seems most of the players are highly motivated to cooperate and put a solution in place quickly. We intend to support whatever becomes the standard.

The great thing about Samsung inventory is that the apps are approved by Samsung. So, this inventory is premium to begin with and that will help keep the value of the inventory high within the Samsung AdHub Market.