InMobi Pte, a mobile advertising startup backed by Softbank Group, is partnering with Samsung Electronics Co and other device makers as it targets reaching more than 650 million smartphone users.
The partnership will embed technology in hardware so ads display while users are on their device’s home or lock screens, InMobi chief financial officer Manish Dugar said in an interview.
The company is working with the “biggest names you can think of” and has signed up two companies outside of India and four inside, Dugar said, declining to name the vendors.
InMobi makes most of its sales with ads in more than 35,000 smartphone applications such as offers for rides through Uber Technologies Inc’s cab-hailing service while a user is browsing Flipkart Online Services Pvt’s online store. The embedded technology will bypass apps to reach people while they do other things on their device, helping it compete better against Google Inc and Facebook Inc for revenue.
Working with manufacturers also enables InMobi to collect data on people’s location and usage patterns, Dugar said. Information from dozens of internal sensors in the device helps understand the mood and activity of a phone user.
“Data enriches my understanding,” Dugar said in the interview in Bengaluru, India, on Monday last week. “If the sensors show you’re looking at your phone from a reclined angle, I know you are relaxing and I will show you an ad for some soothing music from a singer that I know you like.”
InMobi’s gross revenue in the fourth quarter last year was about US$400 million on an annualized basis, or revenue in the period multiplied by four, Dugar said.
The company, which turned a profit for the first time in the three months ended December, expects to be profitable again in the third or fourth quarter of this year, Dugar said.
The company’s goal is to get a better valuation when it goes for an initial public offering, most probably in the US.
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