Affle, Yahoo India enter into a partnership for mobile ads in India

India and Singapore-based digital media firm Affle has entered into a partnership with Yahoo India for mobile advertising in India. As part of this partnership, Affle will sell Yahoo India's mobile advertising inventory across mobile devices that include feature phones, smart phones as well as tablets. Yahoo's offerings in the country include Yahoo Cricket, OMG, Lifestyle and Movies, among others.

Anuj Kumar, co-founder and CEO- Affle, said, "We believe that this partnership would be ideal for us to grow our mobile advertising propositions for advertisers and agency partners. Also, given the significant growing base of mobile Internet users and smartphones in India, we are really bullish that rich ad engagement on destinations like Yahoo would be the key catalysts to drive rapid growth of the mobile ad market."

Affle Group's businesses include Affle Rich Media Business, Affle Media Lab and ad2c (a joint venture between Affle and D2C Inc.). It operates across multiple Asian markets and Affle's investors include D2C Inc. (JV between Dentsu and NTT DoCoMo), Microsoft Corporation, Itochu Corporation of Japan, Bennett Coleman Company Limited (BCCL) and Centurion Private Equity.

The company recently launched an integrated media and video ad network called Ripple that offers advertising solutions across all smart screens like PC, tablet, mobile, smart TV and consoles.

It also strengthened its India business team by appointing Vikas Katoch as national sales head and Prashant Kripps as head, publisher development and management, for its soon-to-be-launched new digital business unit in India. Both Katoch and Kripps were previously with Komli Media as national sales head for video advertising and national head for publisher groups, respectively.

(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)