Consolidation: Super Carrier SingTel Buys Amobee For $321 Million

The mobile ad market continues to boom. Mobile advertising is projected to bring in revenues of $2.6bn in the U.S. alone this year, and that is only a small fraction of the wider opportunity in digital advertising. Pan-Asian carrier SingTel is now piling in on the action by announcing it would buy California-based Amobee to expand its own mobile advertising business, in a deal worth $321m.

SingTel has 434 million mobile customers in 25 countries, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand. The $321m price tag may represent a good return on investment for those companies that have backed Amobee — which had raised about $54m from backers that included Accel, Sequoia, Globespan, Vodafone, Cisco, Motorola, Telefonica and Amdocs.

Amobee will give SingTel the ability to integrate existing capabilities with its own ad-serving platform that covers banner and rich-media ads. As all of Amobee’s existing employees, including CEO Trevor Healy, will be joining SingTel, it also gives the carrier a bolted-on team experienced in mobile ads.

E-marketer estimates that mobile advertising will be worth $2.6bn in the U.S. in 2012. Projections for worldwide mobile ad revenue are around $7bn for this year and $20bn by 2015, according to SingTel.

SingTel’s aquisition of Amobee is expected to complete before June 2012.

Komli Media Acquires Admax, SEA’s #1 Media Network

Komli Media, a leading Asia Pacific media technology company, announced last week its acquisition of Admax Network, South East Asia’s (SEA) largest digital media network. With a monthly reach of over 90 million unique users, Admax covers six of the world’s fastest growing markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The online advertising market in SEA is estimated to be worth approximately US$250 – 300m, and growing at 30-40 per cent per year. This acquisition will provide Komli Media with a diverse publisher network of 4,600 local and international websites, including Admax’s exclusive sales partnership with Facebook in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines and with MSN in Thailand.

“The strength of our teams and technology has established us as the leader in digital advertising across Asia Pacific. Admax’s deep publisher and advertiser relationships and strong team presence across key markets in South East Asia will further reinforce our position. We are delighted to have our expertise come together, allowing the combined organization to flourish as the strongest player in the region,” says Prashant Mehta, CEO, Komli Media.

“Komli Media is at the forefront of bringing leading solutions to the digital marketplace and we are thrilled to be part of their team. We are especially excited to leverage their innovative RTB, mobile and video platforms to deliver more value to our partners and deepen our presence in SEA,” says Mathew Ward, CEO, Admax Network.

Komli Media will integrate its current SEA team, operating as Aktiv Digital, with that of Admax’s, under the Komli Media brand. With this acquisition, Komli Media will have over 400 employees and will service more than 1,000 active advertisers across Asia Pacific with a reach of over 150 million unique monthly users, which will make the company the largest independent media network in the region.

Innity Launches Video Ad Network

Innity, a South East Asia advertising ad network and online marketing solutions provider, launches EnRoll, it announced last week. EnRoll is a video network that’s paired with a range of video ad units which aim to increase brand impact and user engagement.

According to eMarketer, by 2014 video is set to be the third largest online ad format. Video ads are measurable and allow for the implementation of targeting techniques, which is not possible with TV ads. According to Forrester Research, digital video advertising spend was $2.0bn for 2011 and will reach $5.4bn in 2016.

The EnRoll video ad formats are housed within the video player, inviting users to rollover or click on the ad. There are currently five video ad formats that are both Pre-Roll and Mid-Stream units running mainly on Cost per View (CPV) and Cost per Engagement (CPE).

The mid-stream ad units – Strip, VidStrip, Side-Step, and Appeel are units that initially appear as an overlay at the bottom or in a corner of the video browser five seconds after the video plays, inviting the audience to interact with the ad. Upon rollover/click, the ad expands within the video browser. Advertisers can populate the ad with interactive product info and tips, videos, a store locator and social sharing features.

Fabian Looa, COO of Innity, comments: “Enroll video ads not only have the ability to bring the emotive power of television online, it can also take advantage of the powerful interactive elements of social media and online advertising, bringing together the complete Eco-system of brand marketing into one video ad unit. Moreover, targeting technologies like Geographical, Behavioral, and Re-targeting give brands the ability to present highly relevant ads to the individual. This results in extremely engaging ads.”

ViDM Launches Emerge Digital to Help Premium Publishers Maximise Return on Audience Data & Ad Inventory

ViDM (Ventures in Digital Media), a specialist in commercialising international advertising technologies, has announced last week the launch of Emerge Digital, Asia Pacific’s first independent advertising sales and data management technology provider for premium digital publishers.

Emerge Digital has been founded with the hopes of helping Australian publishers achieve greater independence from international media platforms, gain back control of their audience data and ad inventory and enable access to innovative advertising technology products from international markets, such as the USA and Europe.

Emerge Digital also launched Yield Connect, a private Sell-Side Platform (‘SSP’) that helps publishers optimise the yield of their display ad inventory using a private ad exchange solution which can be customised to their needs.

Unintended leaks of audience data flow from Australian publishers’ sites through third party ad tags every day into the hands of ad networks that use it by targeting advertisers directly with a publisher’s audience data on cheaper inventory. As an in-house ad exchange, Yield Connect helps premium publishers prevent this and retain advertising budgets.

Angus McDonald, formerly with Yahoo!7, has been appointed Managing Director of Emerge Digital, and is responsible for leading the business from its Sydney-based HQ.

Angus McDonald, Managing Director at Emerge Digital comments: “We established Emerge Digital based upon three key pillars: to deliver independent and actionable data-driven insights; to provide innovative advertising technology solutions; and to support our solutions for premium publisher clients with local expertise and service. Yield Connect is a world-class private SSP that allows publishers to keep control of their most precious commodity - their audience data - compared to a global open exchange, which commoditises it. Emerge Digital is a solution that bridges the innovation gap by enabling publishers to maintain their competitive edge in a rapidly changing digital marketplace.”