InMobi Raises $8 Million in VC Funding

InMobi, a mobile advertising network company based in Bangalore, India, has raised Rs. 37 crores (about $8 million) funding with the help of venture capitalist firms like Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB). The company, previously known as mKhoj, has managed to raise nearly Rs. 70 crores (about $15 million) so far with the help of venture capitalist firms, which is quite a feat considering it was started only three years back.

InMobi specializes in serving ads, most of which are CPC (cost per click) ads, on mobile sites and mobile applications. The InMobi platform serves close to 17 billion ad impressions every month, of which nearly 10 billion impressions are served in the Asia Pacific region alone. It is not surprising since the company’s largest market, India, which has more than 600 million mobile phone users, and a number of other smaller markets including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand are from this region.

InMobi plans to use these funds to expand its presence in the US, Japan, and African markets. Abhay Singhal, the co-founder of the company, stated that the company is keen on investing in technology and manpower to establish their presence strongly in these regions.

Such news, in my opinion, will send a positive signal to a lot of mobile advertising startups not just in India, but all over the world. Despite the fact that the global economy has taken a bad hit, mobile ad firms continue to attract VCs and get funds to expand their presence, which is quite amazing. It just goes to show that the number of people who believe that mobile advertising, as an industry, has a bigger and better future is growing by the day.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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India - The Second Largest Consumer of Mobile Internet

A recent report by Google says that India is the second largest consumer of mobile internet in the world today. The report says that more than 14 billion mobile web page views were generated in the month of February 2010. India accounted for 5.9% of these page views. The U.S., being the largest consumer of mobile internet, accounted for more than 50% of page views in February.

India has managed to edge past its closest competitor China in terms of mobile data usage. Its burgeoning mobile user population (currently more than 500 million mobile phone users) is one of the main reasons why it has managed to topple China and rise to the second position. Another reason could be the recent fallout between Google and the Chinese government, which has weakened Google’s presence in China considerably. Given the fact that this report only considers countries where Google has a strong presence, it is not very surprising that India is ahead of China in terms of mobile internet usage.

An important fact to be mentioned here is that though India has more than 500 million mobile users, only about 25 million users use the paid data services offered by network operators. Google India, however, predicts that this number could rise to 100 million by the end of 2010.

An interesting fact that the report has mentioned is that most Indian mobile users use reasonably priced low end handsets like Nokia 5130 Express Music and Nokia 3110c. In stark contrast, mobile users in the U.S. use high end handsets like the iPhone for mobile internet purposes. This situation, however, is expected to change soon thanks to the proliferation of high end devices in the Indian market lately. As more and more people turn their attention toward high end phones, the number of mobile internet users in India is expected to rise steadily in the coming years.

Categories: Mobile Web.

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Mobile Application Downloads to Reach Five Billion by 2014

New York based research firm ABI Research says that the number of mobile applications downloaded by mobile phone users is expected to reach five billion by 2014. It says that the surge in smart phone sales and the increase in the number of mobile app stores are the reasons why there has been a sharp increase in the number of apps downloaded in the last few years.

The iPhone, according to ABI Research, is still the major player in the mobile app market. However, its market share is expected to reduce considerably over the next few years due to the rise of Google Android. Android currently has an 11% market share. Due to its increasing popularity and Apple’s shrinking market share, Android’s market share is expected to increase from 11% to 23% by 2014.

The reason behind Android’s growth in the mobile application market is not hard to fathom. As of now, 14 phones run the Android OS and the number is expected to increase sharply this year due to the introduction of new Android based phones. Also, the response for free mobile apps from Google, Google Maps being a fine example, has been great so far. Since Google is expected to come up with more such free apps and ad-funded apps, it is safe to assume that the number of mobile apps downloaded by consumers will increase in the coming years.

ABI Research has also made another observation. It says that even though the number of mobile apps downloaded by consumers is expected to rise sharply, it may not reflect positively on the revenue chart. It says that the proliferation of free ad-funded apps might make people reluctant to buy paid mobile apps. It is quite a bold prediction given the fact that the idea of ad-funded apps is still in its nascent stage.

What I believe is that there is enough space for both ad-funded apps and paid apps. While the demand for free ad-funded apps is likely to increase significantly, the demand for paid apps, particularly business centric mobile apps, will not disappear completely, as there are quite a few people who do not like the idea of a mobile app loaded with ads. So, I predict a mobile ecosystem where ad-funded apps and paid apps can coexist without any problems. What do you think? I am interested in hearing different opinions.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Indian Mobile Advertising Market on a Roll

We have seen a lot of reports about India being a very dominant player in the mobile advertising market, right? Here is one more report to add to that long list. Limbo, a California based mobile social networking company, and GfK Technology, a Germany based market research company, have come up with a joint report which brings up some important points about mobile advertising in India.

The report says that eight in ten mobile phone users in India get ads on their mobile phone which is unprecedented to say the least. The numbers we are talking are huge – there are 300 million mobile users in India now and, on an average, there are 100 million new mobile connections added every year. In this scenario, mobile ads could have a tremendous reach in both urban and rural areas.

The report also says that text messaging or SMS (short messaging service) is the most sought after format of mobile advertising. Around 75% of the ads delivered in India are text based.

Mobile internet or mobile web is not as popular as one would imagine in India as data plans are quite costly. But the report predicts that the rates will come down significantly due to three reasons.

1. A lot of youngsters are interested in mobile web. Considering the fact that more than 500 million people in India are yet to celebrate their 20th birthday, this is a huge market.

2. The quality of mobile web browsing has increased tremendously thanks to high end phones like Apple iPhone. So, the number of people who use the feature will go up steadily.

3. Most importantly, mobile web, as predicted by experts around the world, is the future of mobile advertising. So, mobile advertisers will find a way to reach their target customers through mobile web. What this means to the end user is that he could get a lot of free, ad sponsored multimedia content.

At the end of the day, all this data leaves us with a question – is the future of mobile phone advertising heading east?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Mobile web to be worth $16 billion in 2011

Apparently, some people are confused as to why there is so much fuss about mobile web. Well; the short answer is - $16 billion.

1. Analysts say that mobile web will be worth a whopping $16 billion in just three years from now. Now, a $16 billion market is something that is too big for even giants like Google and Yahoo to be taken lightly.

2. Also, the size of the mobile phone market is three times bigger than the size of the web market. In other words, there are three mobile phone users for one PC user. Now, where do you see more opportunities?

3. Apple iPhone, in more ways than one, changed the landscape of the mobile world. Since its arrival, mobile internet usage has increased as most of the iPhone users regularly surf the net from their phone. Add more high-end phones like Nokia N95, Blackberry, and other such smart phones to the equation and you have the perfect recipe for a mobile web revolution.

4. With 3G and 3.5G networks, high speed mobile browsing is very much possible for mobile users. This will significantly increase the number of mobile web users in the future.

Hence, the excitement.

While Google is busy with Android, Yahoo has been silently working its way to the top. Both these companies have kept people guessing what would be their next move in the mobile world for quite some time now. In my opinion, Yahoo has a slight edge over Google as it’s already set its foot firmly in the mobile market. However, if Android could do to Google what the iPhone did for Apple, we’d be looking at a completely different situation. Either way, the competition is going to be interesting to watch.

Categories: Mobile Web.

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