Twitter has finalized the sale of MoPub, its mobile ad network, to AppLovin, a mobile game developer and marketing software supplier, for $1.05 billion in cash. The agreement was initially disclosed in October 2021, when Twitter stated its intention to increase its income by 2023 to $7.5 billion or more.
Despite the fact that MoPub helped Twitter produce $188 million in yearly income by 2020, Twitter now sees more opportunity in growing other aspects of its company as part of its rapid product development. The firm stated that it is now refocusing its resources on performance-based advertisements, small businesses, and commerce. Twitter reaffirmed its ambitions to continue developing its own owned and controlled products today.
“Now that MoPub has been sold, we’re focusing our efforts on improving advertisements throughout our platform.” In a news statement, Twitter’s GM of Revenue Products, Bruce Falck, stated, “Our objective is to achieve quicker growth in important areas and expedite our product development.” MoPub’s sale, according to Twitter CFO Ned Segal, allows Twitter to focus on the “huge potential for advertisements” on its website and mobile apps.
However, the agreement gives Twitter the option to invest in other areas of its company, perhaps allowing it to diversify its income source beyond advertising. The company significantly accelerated the pace of product development in the last year or so, with launches such as Twitter Spaces audio chat rooms, newsletters (via its Revue acquisition), online communities, a misinformation debunking project called Birdwatch, paid subscription service Twitter Blue, creator economy tools and features such as Super Follow and tipping, crypto, e-commerce including live shopping, and more. These tools, when combined, provide Twitter greater options to generate income in innovative ways, such as commissions on ticketed events or subscriptions.
The sale of MoPub also occurred at a time when Apple’s newest version of the iOS mobile operating system was causing havoc in the mobile advertising market. More customers may now opt-out of monitoring by applications and marketers thanks to Apple’s new privacy-focused technologies, making a firm like MoPub much less enticing for Twitter.
AppLovin, on the other hand, sees value in incorporating MoPub’s demand- and supply-side capabilities into its bigger in-app mediation platform, MAX, and then migrating publishers and demand partners to the unified platform, allowing it to expand its business. By 2023, the business intends to have processed more than $15 billion in annually advertiser expenditure.
According to AppLovin, MoPub’s platform was utilized by 45,000 mobile apps to handle their monetization at the time of the purchase, and it reached 1.5 billion addressable consumers throughout the world. More than 150 DSPs now have direct access to the AppLovin Exchange, representing thousands of brands and agencies, according to the business. “More features assist developers by allowing them to boost monetization potential and improve procedures, resulting in more income for their enterprises.” In a statement, AppLovin’s co-founder and CEO, Adam Foroughi, stated, “We think the potential of this unified platform will be unequaled in today’s industry.”
“With our eyes set on managing the largest and most extensive in-app advertising platform that improves the growth of the larger mobile app ecosystem, we are delighted to execute on this strategic acquisition.” The deal was supposed to complete in early 2022. The MoPub platform, which includes network mediation, Advanced Bidding, and Marketplace, will be retired on March 31, 2022, according to Twitter. Until April 8, 2022, the MoPub Dashboard and Reporting will be available. Publishers will have 90 days from the end of the month to transfer from MoPub to AppLovin’s MAX platform.
