InMobi eyes monetising more global telco data with Pinsight Media deal

InMobi, the India-based mobile marketing and ad technology firm, has bought US telco Sprint’s mobile data and ad subsidiary, Pinsight Media, in an all-stock deal for an undisclosed amount.

Pinsight works with telcos and brands on advertising products that help verticals like consumer goods, retail and finance reach new audiences and better target and retain them. This deal will let InMobi combine network-level mobile data with other mobile data from apps and browsers, giving a more complete picture of consumer habits (within existing privacy laws), according to the company.

While the deal most directly affects the US market, it could still be significant globally since Pinsight’s software is made to monetise telco data. Now that it owns the platform, InMobi says it can extend this capability to telco data elsewhere. 

An India-based spokesperson for InMobi said this could include markets across Asia. China, in fact, is already InMobi’s second-largest revenue driver. 

While telcos are interested in monetising their data, brands are interested in alternative digital data sets to those of the big walled garden platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon (see "APAC's digital-data deficit, and what to do about it").

“This industry-first acquisition allows InMobi and Sprint to work on our respective strengths together,” said InMobi’s founder and CEO Naveen Tewari, "and provides a global template for partnerships between advertising platforms and telcos."