No jumping for joy following Millennial’s Jumptap acquisition

Contact: Scott Denne

Millennial Media promised benefits of scale and new technology last year when it bought fellow mobile ad network Jumptap in a $221m deal that cost the company about one-third of its stock. It’s a bit early to say whether that will play out or not, but on its earnings call this week, Millennial’s management gave a bleak forecast.

Its new CEO, Michael Barrett, who replaced Paul Palmieri last month, vaguely indicated that Millennial would grow about 20% annually, though he didn’t offer any official guidance for this year. That’s especially alarming since the larger audience that the combined company can now reach should attract higher ad prices and bigger advertising budgets.

Millennial is still growing, but at a slower rate than the broader mobile ad market. Revenue for the combined companies was up 42% in 2013 to $342m and up 44% year over year for the last quarter. That’s well below the numbers put up by other mobile ad vendors. Though not direct comparables, Pandora and Twitter show the rising revenue of in-app advertising. Pandora’s mobile ad revenue grew 73% year over year to $116m in its most recent quarter, and Twitter’s rose 55% to $165m.

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Posted in M&A