New York — Prominent Internet data analysis firm comScore Inc., Wednesday announced the acquisition of M:Metrics, Inc., the renowned leader in mobile measurement business, for $44.3 million in cash plus common stock options. The purchase is partly in response to last year’s acquisition of M:Metrics competitor Telephia by Nielsen.
The deal consists about 50,000 options for certain M:Metrics unvested option holders to buy ComScore shares, the company said.
“With the substantial growth of 3G devices and Internet friendly handsets, we believe we are now at an inflection point in Internet usage on mobile devices,” Magid Abraham, comScore’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
The sale of M:Metrics is a proof that mobile industry is no more a niche, but a separate industry that must be analyzed and tracked much like TV and Internet audiences are today.
M:Metrics has three main measurement products:
- MobiLens: An organized monthly online survey that collects overall mobile phone usage, in addition to device information, data usage, media consumption and demographic trends of a representative sample of more than 40,000 mobile device users.
- MeterDirect: The industry’s leading on-device meter that passively measures the mobile Internet activities and media consumption of more than 4,000 existing Smartphone panelists. The M:Metrics metering equipment is compatible with more than 280 device models.
- M:Ad: Is the primary competitive tracking service for mobile advertising that endlessly monitors clickable display advertising from a wide representative set of mobile Web destinations to reveal leading advertisers across a variety of market segments.
“We see compelling opportunities to increase the market penetration of M:Metrics… products within comScore’s customer base,” said Abraham in the statement. The firm also aims to “cross-sell comScore’s portfolio of products into the wireless industry, including the major carriers and device manufacturers,” he added.
comScore said it will increase the size of M:Metrics’ metered panel and will offer combined results across internet usage from both PCs mobile phones. Combining both the companies is expected to result in considerable operating synergies, cost savings and enhanced revenue growth by building a larger customer base, adding the two sales forces and leveraging comScore’s global panel and infrastructure.
“Our acquisition of M:Metrics makes comScore an “immediate market leader” in measuring the promising and strategically significant mobile Internet market and adds to comScore’s leading position to deliver significant shareholder value as wireless carriers, telecom equipment providers, media companies, advertising agencies, online publishers, and marketers extend their reach into the mobile Internet world.”
Securing access to additional data analysis tools could also help comScore deal with the reality that several businesses still do not trust Web usage metrics, which often vary significantly from one tracking firm to the next.
As part of the purchase, which closed Wednesday, M:Metrics co-founders Will Hodgman and Seamus McAteer will become part of comScore’s management team. comScore presently has about 950 clients, the company said, and M:Metrics has more than 180.