Mobvista aims to increase reach across sectors with Reyun acquisition

In late April, Guangzhou-based mobile advertising and analytics platform Mobvista reached an agreement to acquire Reyun, a Beijing-based third-party mobile measurement and marketing technology company. The deal, which should close late this year, is valued around RMB 1.5 billion (US$233 million). After the acquisition, Reyun will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mobvista.

Why did Mobvista choose to acquire Reyun at this moment, and how will this acquisition affect the future of its global market and business in Greater China? Campaign China spoke with Clement Cao, co-founder and CEO of Mobvista.

Mobvista chose to acquire Reyun because its "comprehensive martech SaaS product matrix would help bolster our SaaS tooling ecosystem and full-stack service capabilities", Cao said. "We also believe the acquisition would help enhance Mobvista’s capabilities to product commercialisation.”

While the bulk of Mobvista's customers are mobile app and games developers, Reyun serves a wide range of companies in sectors including mobile games, social networking, finance, ecommerce, education, live broadcasting, life services, utilities and mobile networks. Cao believes that Reyun’s mature sales network will greatly accelerate the commercialization of Mobvista products across these sectors. "By bringing together the two companies, the acquisition will further the expansion of Mobvista’s businesses in domestic and overseas markets," Cao said. "Moreover, with Reyun’s customer base, this would be key in opening up opportunities to serve clients across more industries.”

Evolving adtech roles

As for adtech, Cao noted that major shifts have continued to accelerate consolidation among third-party service providers, especially with Apple’s deprecation of its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). “The roles of independent mobile measurement companies and third-party service providers have to evolve to continue to deliver value to their customers,” he said.

Cao believes consolidation will enhance transparency and promote a more secure digital advertising environment. "By bringing Mobvista and Reyun together, data can be securely stored on one platform," he said. "As a third-party platform, Mobvista is able to consolidate data from different sources and turn them into actionable insights across analytics, user acquisition, monetisation, and optimisation to deliver the best results. Post-acquisition, Mobvista is uniquely positioned to provide secure solutions and deliver key capabilities at a global scale.”

For global customers, especially those unfamiliar with the Chinese market, after the acquisition, Mobvista and Reyun will work together to provide them with a more comprehensive and refined service. “Whether these customers’ needs in China are user acquisition, branding or monetisation, Mobvista will now be able to offer SaaS products across these areas,” Cao said.

“These products are built with Chinese consumers in mind, and are fueled by data that has been accumulated within the Chinese market. Our service and support teams [technical, maintenance] in China will also expand to ensure well-rounded service to any customer looking to grow in China.”

Speaking about how the acquisition will affect future business in Greater China, Cao said customers in Greater China can look forward to a greater variety of technologies and products. "These can cover more scenarios across our customers’ growth trajectories at every stage, from attribution, user growth, monetization, creatives analytics, data analytics, through to underlying cloud computing cost optimization.”

The acquisition is also a win-win option on the product and technology levels. Cao said,“as many of Reyun’s customers have needs beyond analytics and measurement, Mobvista can now meet all their needs including UA [User Acquisition], monetization and cloud computing cost optimization. ”

Cao highlighted that data privacy is a priority. The company has obtained and continues to seek third-party certifications, including ISO/IEC 2700, the kidSAFE+ COPPA Seal Annual Audit for its Mintegral programmatic platform, WhiteSource SDK Security Audit for Mintegral, and an AICPA SOC 2 Type 1 Audit.

Post-acquisition, these will also extend to Reyun to “ensure Reyun meets all the requirements to provide secure and privacy-centric growth solutions to our customers,” Cao said.