InMobi- An Inspiring Startup Success Story From India

By Vivek Chakraverty 6 Min Read

The year 2007 saw Mohit Saxena, Naveen Tewari, Abhay Singhal and Amit Gupta joining forces and take the world of entrepreneurship by nothing short of a storm. The ten years that have elapsed since have been exciting, eventful and highly fruitful for the founders of InMobi.

Over the years it has enabled hundreds of thousands if not millions of consumers to discover and chance upon several new services and products they would not have a chance to know if it were not for InMobi.

InMobi provides personalized ads on mobiles in a highly contextualized setting. InMobi lets developers of apps, brands, and merchants be discovered by netizens. More importantly, such businesses can also engage with potential customers through the ad delivery and discovery platform provided by the company and it does so on a global scale.

The Recent Past

The previous year was an eventful one for InMobi. They tried and succeeded at a variety of things. They also learned a lot during the course of their endeavors. The company put its focus on developing and bringing to the market new products which belong to the remarketing and mobile video niche. The year also brought forth growth on a scale the company had not witnessed before especially in markets like China which are both interesting as well as challenging.

A Brief Roundup

Global Remarketing Platform

The year began on a triumphant note for the company when it launched in the market its in-app platform for remarketing which is also mobile first. The company witnesses a stupendous increase of 400% in the adoption of mobile remarketing. This growth in 2016 was driven by performance marketers shifting their attention to acquiring increased revenue from users who already have installed the app rather than focussing on driving installs. The platform introduced by InMobi met with success soon after its launch with adoption by leading Indian e-commerce companies. In fact, it already accounts for 7% of their sales.

Increase in Video Ad Revenues

With the increased bandwidth available to netizens irrespective of location brands and markets are turning to video storytelling in a big way. This is reflected by the fact that consumption of video ads on InMobi’s network saw a whopping 200% rise. Quick to tap into the trend InMobi came up with 360 video as well as vertical video ad formats which are not only mobile first but also highly advanced. InMobi targeted the China, India and APAC markets during this period.

Key Markets Witnesses Rise in Programmatic Advertising

InMobi authorized a study which bears out that about three-fourths of all marketers make use of programmatic advertising and nearly 33% of them have been at it for over two years. In the first half of 2016 alone the spending of Fortune 500 brands accounted for 85% of mobile programmatic spend on the InMobi network. The fastest growing verticals in terms of ad spend are games, retail, and CPG.

Mastering the Dragon

According to InMobi China accounts for one-third of the revenue of the company. In this particular market, InMobi has seen 15x growth during a relatively short span of three years. It has also seen a 140% CAGR in the 2012-2015 period. In fact, InMobi has already positioned itself as the biggest independent native ad network to be found in China. It is claimed that 80% of iOS users in China receive ads from their network. Through a dominating strategy of partnering with nearly 800 of the top 1000 Chinese apps, it has managed to deliver the most number of app downloads in China. The network spreads to over 460 million smartphone users, a figure that stands for four-fifths of all Chinese smartphone users. The total impressions per month on this network stands at a formidable 30 billion which is primarily dominated by iOS users.

Growing Through Strategic Partnerships

The company was sagacious enough to partner with the main players in its ecosystem as a part of its strategy. This not only boosted growth but built their credibility as well. It has partnered with Nielsen, MOAT, and IAS or Integral Ad Science following this strategy. InMobi also entered into a partnership with Tapjoy where it can monetize inventory on an exclusive basis.

InMobi was placed at the 15th spot among the list of companies that innovate the most ion 2016.

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