InMobi introduces native advertising on its platform

Bangalore- and San Francisco-based mobile ad network InMobi has introduced native advertising on its platform, which will enable brands to deliver ads that do not distract users from their app's primary experience, the company said in a blog post.

With these in-context native ad units (in-stream ads, icons and news feeds), brands can customise each ad unit to adapt to their app's native features. The platform auto stitches ads on the fly and enables advertisers to serve native ad formats with virtually no additional effort.

"This platform offers massive customisations with minimal development effort from app developers. Advertisers with diverse goals - whether app promotions, brand awareness or even retail - can participate in this fluid ecosystem without worrying about how their brand is presented in front of consumers," read the blog post.

Set up in 2007, InMobi's platform enables brands, publishers and developers to engage with global consumers through mobile advertising. The company is backed by investors such as SoftBank Corp, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. In 2011, it had struck what was at that time the largest deal in the mobile internet space in India with $200 million commitment from Japan's SoftBank. InMobi has offices in India, the UK and the US (as well as in other global locations).

The company currently employs 800 people and has customers in 165 countries. It has recently expanded its footprint into the rest of Asia, Europe and Australia.

As of May 2013, InMobi's mobile ad network was reaching 691 million unique users per month across 165 countries via mobile devices (covering more than 40 per cent of smartphone users globally), over 16 per cent rise in the number of consumers from 578 million in January 2013. India was at the third spot with 49 million users among the countries that have the largest number of monthly unique users for InMobi – after the US with 156 million and China with 63 million users.

Early last month, InMobi had entered into a strategic partnership with Chinese gaming company CocoaChina (owner of the Fishing Joy app franchise) to enable app monetisation and revenue maximisation across its entire user base.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)