Indian mobile ad network Vserv expanding into emerging markets

Bangalore: Mobile ad network, Vserv is planning to follow the InMobi path by targeting emerging markets for growth. The two-year-old start-up is set to establish an office in Singapore next month. With this, the Mumbai-based venture hopes to expand its reach in South East Asia.

"Developers from other countries use our product but that has been a result of online marketing. With offices in other markets we would like to expand our marketing reach," says Dippak Khurana, co-founder and CEO of Vserv. The venture's product, AppWrapper, adds advertisements to a developer's mobile application or apps and can be used on basic feature phones that have mobile internet browsing and on smartphones.

InMobi, which claims to have delivered mobile advertisements in 165 countries, had focused on countries like Indonesia, South Africa and Malaysia before entering the more developed US and Europe markets. InMobi, which is counted among the largest mobile ad networks in the world, raised $200 million from Japan's Softbank in September last year.

The rise in mobile penetration and mobile internet usage has spurred the growth of mobile advertising. Industry estimates put the total number of mobile phone subscriptions at over 5 billion and a Cisco study has estimated that 788 million people across the world will access internet solely through the mobile phone by 2015.

The surging numbers have a direct impact on mobile advertising and according to industry research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, mobile advertising revenue will cross $24 billion in 2015 and the largest contributor will be the Asia Pacific region.

Vserv's Khurana claims that over 10,000 apps run AppWrapper. "Only 30% of our product downloads happen in India. The rest comes from South East Asian countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, followed by Middle East and Africa," says Khurana, who hopes to have a physical presence in these markets by year-end.

Khurana hopes to replicate the learnings in India across emerging markets. "The Indian market is representative of the emerging markets, in terms of devices and usage, so what succeeds here can be replicated elsewhere," says Khurana, who is targeting to reach $100 million in revenues in three years.