Contact: Scott Denne
Mobvista makes its second international deal of the year with the acquisition of mobile behavioral analytics vendor GameAnalytics. Fueled by its recent listing on China’s NEEQ exchange, an over-the-counter board for Chinese startups, Mobvista is expanding from its roots as a mobile ad network into a broader platform for gaming monetization. Its previous transaction, the $25m purchase of NativeX, brought it reach into the US market as well as video advertising and other rich media formats.
Today’s pickup of Copenhagen-based GameAnalytics gets it software that provides game developers with audience behavioral and segmentation data that can be deployed for marketing campaigns or product development. The move mirrors Tapjoy’s (much earlier) transformation from a mobile ad network into a gaming monetization platform with its reach for South Korea’s 5Rocks two years ago. Other competitors selling a broad platform for game developers include Chartboost and Unity Technologies, a game engine developer that announced a $181m funding round earlier this week.
Mobvista is one of an expanding number of China-based businesses using M&A to grab a bigger share of the mobile app ecosystem. So far this year, Chinese companies have acquired 10 mobile assets for a total of $9.2bn – both numbers are higher than the total at the same point in any other year, according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase. This year’s deal value total, bolstered by Tencent’s $8.6bn acquisition of Supercell, is already double that of any other previous year. Mobile apps are a large and high-growth market in China. According to 451 Research’s Mobile Marketing and Commerce Forecast, mobile advertising revenue in China will increase 86% this year to $11.6bn and account for more than one-quarter of the global market.
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