Adjust bets on Southeast Asia's booming mobile market

Mobile measurement firm Adjust says it is investing heavily in Southeast Asia to take advantage of the region’s “explosive mobile growth”.

The business has secured US$227 million in funding — one of Europe’s largest capital raises of 2019 to date — to fuel its expansion.

The Berlin-headquartered company views Southeast Asia as a key region to continue to grow its market share, and plans to “double” its headcount in the region over the coming year. It has had a base in Jakarta since 2016, and is concentrating on growing headcount in Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, followed by Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

“Our goal is to increase local customer support by hiring for our technical teams as well as sales and marketing,” explains April Tayson, Adjust sales director of Southeast Asia.

In an interview with Campaign, Tayson said this year felt like “the perfect time to double down on investment in the region” as mobile penetration balloons. In its latest report, Adjust’s Mobile Growth Map, the business found that Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand were three of the fastest-growing regions for apps around the world. Indonesia was also identified as an app powerhouse, fueled by the popularity of video apps and streaming services.

“To make the most of these opportunities, app marketers need the highest-quality analytics and measurement solutions to find and retain valuable users,” Tayson said.

The software as a service (SaaS) company provides analytics, measurement, fraud prevention, and cybersecurity solutions to more than 28,000 mobile apps worldwide. 

The business already has a wide portfolio of clients in Southeast Asia from startups to multinationals, including Traveloka, Netzme, Ultravoucher, Mytona, Teman Bumil, Go Car, and Booky.

Tayson said fraud prevention will be a key focus in the region, since fraud prevention tools “aren’t as commonplace” as in other parts of the world.

“Fraud prevention is a big focus for us everywhere, but it’s especially important in fast-growing regions like SEA. In the region as a whole, we rejected over 10 million fraudulent installs across 2018, saving our clients over US$30 million — and that’s only from clients who use our Fraud Prevention Suite,” she said.

Tayson claims that Adjust’s Fraud Prevention Suite is “unique” in its ability to proactively stop fraud in real-time rather than just detecting it, so clients never pay for a fake install.

She also noted that Southeast Asia “still has huge blind spots when it comes to other kinds of fraud on mobile”, which its latest products can address.

Adjust this year acquired US data aggregation platform Acquired.io, Israel-based cyber security and AI start-up Unbotify and also formed a strategic partnership with Japanese marketing agency Adways, acquiring Adways’ attribution tool PartyTrack.

It has since launched the first of these combined products, Unbotify, that harnesses AI and machine learning to detect in-app bot fraud in real-time.