Opera has united its mobile advertising businesses under one roof after it launched Opera Mediaworks as a fully-owned subsidiary, which it says becomes the world’s largest mobile ad platform. The business amalgamates a number of the publishing and advertising services that Opera has bought in recent times, in addition to a new real-time targeting service for mobile ads that has launched today.
The Norwegian-headquartered browser marker — which recently adopted the open-source Webkit standard — has spent more than $100 million buying companies like AdMarvel, 4th Screen Advertising and Mobile Theory, and now is time to put those units together “under one umbrella to make things more simple”, an Opera spokesperson told TNW.
Opera has a formidable ad platform which saw $400 million of publishing revenue in 2012, up from $240 million in 2011. It serves 50 billion ad impressions per month across its network of 12,000 sites and applications. Opera Mediaworks counts 20 of the top 25 global media companies and 70 of the top 100 Advertising Age advertisers among its clientele, each of which is aiming to get a piece of its 300 million plus monthly users.
That reach makes it the world’s largest mobile ad platform, according to Mahi de Silva, who is CEO of Opera Mediaworks.
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All-in-all, Opera Mediaworks includes ad mediation and exchange services AdMarvel and Opera Mediaworks, mobile advertising networks Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising, the Opera Mobile Store and Opera Payment Exchange to monetize ad solutions.
It isn’t just about consolidation, and Opera has launched ‘Opera Mediaworks Performance’, a service that provides real-time targeting and reporting on mobile ad campaigns to help advertisers better position themselves on its Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers — which are used by 229 million people per month, as of December 2012.
Last year Opera began using its expertise to develop a quarterly State of Mobile Advertising report which, like its State of the Mobile Web reports, provides insight and analysis from its advertising business.
Related: Opera: Android devices were served most ad impressions in Q4 2012, but iOS still top for engagement
Headline image via Opera
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