Google to acquire the mobile advertising platform AdMob

Google is continuing their strategy of conquering the mobile world by announcing that they have acquired the advertising house AdMob for 750 million dollars.

Slowly but surely, Google is spreading their web from the Internet to the mobile phone industry, and witnessing the changes that this brings. While the tendency existed before the appearance of the Android operating system, the acquisitions are now starting to shed some light on the vision that Google started to put together in 2007.

This time it is the mobile advertising sector that Google is looking to grab a position in through the purchase of the advertising house AdMob, specialists at mobile advertising. This acquisition was for 750 million dollars, with the control of mobile advertising streams being the object of some large battles since 2006, notably against Yahoo! and Microsoft who brought together their forces through the testing a range of models.

While the first years were experimental, it now appears that they are consolidating their place through these acquisitions, with the mobile advertising market starting to really take off. Google’s purchase of Admob is explained by Susan Wojcicki, vice-president at Google:

"Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time. AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup – generating impressive year on year revenue growth – and we're excited to welcome this talented team to Google."

Signs that mobile advertising is about to take off?
According to analysts, this acquisition shows more than anything else that Google firmly believes in the success of mobile advertising, with it being a strong growth engine over the coming years. The acquisition, which firstly has to be green lighted by the regulatory authorities, is the third largest operation in Google’s history, allowing them to get their hands into one of the major mobile advertising houses.

Cited by Reuters, Mike Wehrs, president of the Marketing Mobile Association, states that the mobile advertising market should see growth of between 28 and 33% next year, which equals revenue of 2.3 to 2.4 billion dollars.

Advertising being shown within mobile applications present on smartphones so far seems to be a great success, even if SMS advertising is still the most successful method at this moment.