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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Samsung Rolls Its Own Ad Exchange for its Phones, Tablets

Samsung Galaxy S II (U.S. Cellular)

Samsung said Tuesday that it has formed an ad exchange specifically devoted to the mobile market, which it will use to provide its own ads on its smartphones and tablets.

The Samsung AdHub, as it will be known, was created as a partnership with OpenX, the companies said.

The exchange would presumably compete with Google's own AdMob mobile ad network, which unsurprisingly dominates the Android app network. In an Oct. 2011 study by Xyologic, 89 percent of the top 1,000 Android apps that used mobile advertising as a monetization method used an Admob SDK.

Samsung would conceivably use AdHub as its own private ad network, giving pride of place to it on its own apps. Whether or not Samsung would develop its own version of, say, an Android browser with AdHub installed is unknown. Earlier this year, Samsung announced Samsung AdHub for SmartTV advertising, enabling brands to deliver 3D, video, and other interactive ads into the living room via Samsung's connected televisions.

For its part, Samsung estimated worldwide mobile advertising revenue at $3.3 billion in 2011, estimated to grow 520 percent to $20.6 billion by 2015.

A recent study also found that Amazon trounced Google in terms of Android app revenue, not the least of which by offering its own private app market. Samsung does the same, but the apps are far sparser than what Amazon or Google's Google Play market offer.

"Samsung is empowering both the developer and the advertiser, by creating a win-win solution, in which the app developer is able to achieve higher revenues and advertisers are able to reach their marketing goals," said Daniel Park, vice president of Samsung's media solution center, in a statement. "To this extent, we believe RTB can play an important role in motivating all players and we're delighted to partner with OpenX and use its excellent technology as the foundation for it. The Samsung AdHub team is continuously working to offer innovation and value in the advertising market."

For more, see our Samsung Galaxy Note hands-on slideshow, below.

For more from Mark, follow him on Twitter @MarkHachman.

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