Tag: mobile ad

Alibaba’s slice of the mobile ad market to rise this year

Despite its declining hold on the global digital ad marketplace as a whole, smaller screen marketing is up.

Online commerce giant, Alibaba Group Holding Inc., may find its global mobile ad market share climbing higher this year. This, despite the fact that the company’s grip on the digital advertising space is starting to slide.

eMarketer’s data shows the Chinese ecommerce giant will have a smaller portion of global digital ad spend.

The research firm’s prediction is that the digital ad spend drop will be around 0.9 percent to 4.6 percent in 2016 compared to the figures from 2015. That said, the mobile ad market share will be climbing at the same time. That increase will be significant, as its share will rise to 10.9 percent. Last year, that figure had been 8.7 percent.

Mobile Ad Market on the RiseIn the Chinese market, Alibaba will continue to be the leading player in both those markets. The massive company will hold onto 39.7 percent of the tremendous $27.9 billion Chinese market for mobile advertising. Furthermore, it will boost its share of digital ad spend to 28.9 percent. That is an increase of nearly 4 percent compared to 2015.

The strength in the mobile ad market share growth is due to the company’s customer retention strategy.

Andria Chen, an eMarketer analyst, explained that the company’s strategy to hold consumers within its entertainment and online ecosystem explain its mobile ad success. The company has been acquiring several different companies within those spaces.

For instance, Alibaba purchased the Youku Tudou video streaming platform in 2016. According to eMarketer, that particular purchase may “aid sales growth” for Alibaba during this quarter. It may also help the company to assemble more complete user profiles.

Furthermore, the ecommerce giant has also made investments in a number of other areas supporting growth. For example, it has raised capital for an affiliate platform for local services called Koubei. The funds came from international investors. Equally, it invested more in building out logistics operations within locations such as villages and towns that are not yet easily accessible. It’s easy to see that the company is seeking to amp up its share in more than just the mobile ad market.

Mobile ad startup InMobi is laying off almost 10 percent of its staff

The iconic smartphone advertising company is letting about 100 people go out of around 1,000 total employees.

InMobi, a mobile ad company that has been seen as a considerable Indian success story that has been drawing leading talent and investors throughout the tech industry has now revealed that it is laying off a massive ten percent of its staff.

The cutbacks are going to affect approximately 100 people out of the total staff of 1,000 company employees.

This is the most recent indicator that the mobile ad network is finding it increasingly challenging to be able to survive the staggering competition from giants such as Facebook and Google. The startup has been in direct competition with those massive players when it comes to the data-driven mobile marketing arena. InMobi had been maintaining great hopes for their products, but the startup has not been meeting its targets when it comes to revenue, moreover the burn rates don’t appear to be decreasing, say many media reports.

The mobile ad network has received venture funding from exceptionally powerful top investors.

Mobile Ad Startup layoffsAmong those investors are Sherpalo Ventures from Caulfield & Byers and Ram Shiram, and Softbank from Japan. In 2011, it was the recipient of $200 million from SoftBank, bringing it to the point of being a startup that had more than $1 billion as its market cap.

According to an anonymous source who has knowledge of the latest developments at InMobi, “Investors have told them (InMobi) to reduce costs,” adding that “The layoffs have happened from the senior executive level to the programmer ranks.”

A spokesperson was reported to have said in an email query response that employees have left for a range of different purposes, such as starting their own ventures or moving forward with various career aspirations. That individual explained about the mobile ad network that “We also let go of a few people for performance reasons each year.” That person stated that the startup has a strategy in place for 2016 for driving growth, which included the hiring of 40 additional employees and that it had issued offers for more than 48 management and engineering grads.