Mobile ad spend in China up 90 per cent, says Smaato

China is the world’s fastest growing mobile ad market – outstripping the next largest by 2x.

That’s the key finding of Smaato’s Q1 2017 Global Trends in Mobile Advertising Report. It analysed data from 300bn impressions to reveal that China grew +90 per cent year on year, more than twice that of runner up Australia (+37 per cent).

Overall, the report also reported that mobile ad space is more valuable than ever before as global eCPMs grew almost 50 per cent in 12 months. And it predicts further growth.

“When advertisers understand the value of the long-term tracking capabilities of in-app advertising, combined with rich audience data, we expect to see the eCPMs of in-app advertising to increase by 50 to 100 per cent until 2019,” said Ragnar Kruse, co-founder and CEO of Smaato.

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Telenor’s ‘WowBox’ app now has 10m subscribers

Entertainment fans in developing markets have delivered a huge hit for telco Telenor.

They’ve pushed the Wowbox digital lifestyle app past 10m subs. Wowbox provides users with trending news, sport results, games, music and more.

Irfan Wahab Khan, CEO, Telenor Pakistan, said: “WowBox is one of Telenor’s many innovative products and services that empower people by giving them easy access to multiple online services through a single channel. I am positive that WowBox’s approval ratings will witness exponential growth in the future as well.”

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SpotX launches ‘Audience Lock’ to keep data private

Ad specialist SpotX has moved to help broadcasters, telcos and other media owners protect their audience data.

It’s launched ‘Audience Lock’, which will allow buyers and sellers to define boundaries around who can see what.

The product should help media owners manage the strict new data privacy requirements in some regions. It can be applied across both direct and programmatic direct (private and Curated Marketplaces) transactions.

In related news, SpotX has confirmed the hire of Sebastien Robin as MD for France. He joins from Affiperf, the Havas’ agency trading desk, where he spent four years as COO.

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SAP re-boots its SuccessFactors iOS HR app

47m users of SAP’s SuccessFactors human resources app are about to get a better product experience.

SuccessFactors provides HR managers with instant access to HR services. Now cloud specialist SAP and Apple have teamed up to deliver improvements around:

• Continuous performance management and performance reviews
• Learning certificates, history, task checklist, catalog search and approvals
• Time sheets
• Time-off requests and approvals
• Updated search and org chart
• Unified experience across iPhone and iPad
• Simplified to-do screen, redesigned manager team view and reorganised people profile

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Wirecard and Soldo launch spend management app for SMEs

UK fintech Soldo is to link expenses app with Wirecard’s prepaid cards in a new app for its business customers.

The partners want to provide business managers with notifications about real-time spend so they can more efficiently manage employee use of corporate money cards. They will launch first in Italy.

“Soldo have streamlined the process of managing expenditure with this simple solution for corporates,” said Wirecard Card Solutions Managing Director Tom Jennings. “Italy is a mature market for prepaid where the payment method is widely accepted and prepaid users represent the mass market.”

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The Real Yellow Pages hires Verve to power ad targeting

The Real Yellow Pages has turned to Verve to take its ad reach beyond its own channels.

YP, which has a monthly digital audience of 55 million, will now combine its search intent data with Verve’s location-centric audience segments.

Jared Rowe, Chief Executive Officer at YP, said: “We rely on industry-leading partners like Verve to help us expand our reach beyond our owned and operated channels. This agreement allows us to focus on our large consumer audience while delivering even more value to our clients.”

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