San Francisco — Apple, Inc. moved on Google’s turf on Tuesday with its acquisition of Quattro Wireless, a mobile-ad competitor to AdMob, which Google just acquired. The deal is the latest sign that the mobile phone is the next battlefield for technology companies, especially for Apple and Google, which are increasingly in competition.
Quattro provides ad publishing, tracking and analytics platform to assist advertisers engage with mobile consumers. Its Q Elevation program can be applied to target ad campaigns depending upon consumer demographics, location, time of day and other factors.
Quattro Wireless, yesterday positively affirmed the acquisition by Apple, in a blog post by Quattro CEO Andy Miller, who is identifying himself now as Apple vice president of mobile advertising.
“We are thrilled to let you know that Apple has acquired Quattro,” said the blog post, signed by Andy Miller, Apple’s vice president of mobile advertising. “For now, the offerings and services you receive from Quattro Wireless will not change.”
However, Miller’s blog entry did not give details on the acquisition. But on Monday, the Wall Street Journal blog All Things Digital reported the purchase price for Quattro Wireless is about $275 million, and the move puts Google in Apple’s crosshairs as Google targets Apple with a smartphone.
Representatives of Apple and Quattro could not immediately be reached, but Apple may want Quattro to support its developers as the mobile market soars.
As mobile advertising is considered a hot market because of its vast potential to reach consumers on devices that they carry with them everywhere and personalize. And as Google, arch rival to Apple in the mobile arena, made its own move into mobile advertising in November when it agreed to acquire AdMob for US$750 million.
Google describes a smartphone strategy that exposes the search giant in direct competition with Apple, and now the maker of iPhone has agreed to a deal that may tread on Google’s turf.
Observers envisioned the market for mobile advertising as relatively untapped, with powerful approaches just beginning to take shape. Apple could use an advertising platform to generate more revenue from the iPhone, and potentially from the tablet computer it is rumored to be developing.
“You can just see the tempers rising between the two companies,” said Gene Munster, the senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray covering Internet companies. “Two years ago it was a very friendly relationship. Now just every day it gets more competitive.”
Quattro — which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and was financed by Highland Capital Partners and Globespan Capital Partners — places ads for major companies including Ford Motor, Procter & Gamble Walt Disney and Visa.
It delivers four billion ad impressions a month on iPhones, Google Android devices and other smartphones. The ads range from full-blown applications or videos to small brand ads on a group of Web sites including those of Time, Gawker, Univision and CBS Interactive, according to the company’s Web site.
The business of delivering ads on cellphone screens is nascent but quickly growing. Yet mobile ad spending is expected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2013, as smartphones and other small mobile computing devices become increasingly popular. Neither Apple nor Quattro could immediately be reached for comment, but it appears that Apple, on some level, has decided to join Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others in jockeying for position in a mobile market that is projected to be worth billions in just a few years.