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The Admob of China
CASEE Mobile Advertisement Network is offering a way for China’s hundreds of WAP sites to start generating revenue. The company operates an online marketplace for mobile advertisements at Casee.cn The service is similar to what US-based Admob is doing in other markets: wireless application protocol (WAP) site operators go to Casee and sign up to run ads on their sites, while advertisers can use Casee to buy advertising space on WAP sites. Payment is on a per-click basis, and advertisers bid for ad placement. One way of thinking of it is like Google AdSense for the mobile Internet.
Update: Admob just announced, coincidentally, a US$15 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by Accel Partners, with previous investor Sequoia Capital also participating.
While mobile advertising is still a young industry, Admob appears to be on to something: the one-year old company announced in January that it served one billion mobile ads in six months. With 400 million mobile phones in China and a strong culture of using cell phones for more than just making phone calls, there are major opportunities for mobile advertising in China. Advertising via mass SMS or MMS “Push” messaging is widespread (and widely loathed) in China, but less intrusive advertising, such as what Casee is doing, is just getting started in China.
Several companies, such as Madhouse and Focus Media (Nasdaq: FMCN) operate in the WAP advertising market, though Casee says it is different from these companies in that it is not an advertising network, but a platform that facilitates mobile advertising. According to Casee’s website, it counts the WAP sites of Kongzhong (Nasdaq: KONG) and Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) as partners.
However, with the constant threat of China Mobile clamping down on any aspect of China’s wireless industry, and with independent WAP sites already facing pressure from the dominant force that is China Mobile, it is still too early to tell how the mobile marketing industry will shake out in China.
Casee was launched in December 2006 and has so far stayed under the radar as it works on getting the service up and running smoothly. Xin Ye, former CTO of Linktone (Nasdaq: LTON), is the CEO of Casee (see a previous Pacific Epoch interview with Xin here). Word is Casee may soon close a Series A round of funding; Admob has received investment from Sequoia Capital.
Advertisers and investors should be paying close attention to what Casee and others in the mobile marketing space are doing over the next few years.
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