AppLovin Absorbs MoPub, Takes Aim at Facebook

Ariel Ariel
10/8/21

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps #82 - It's All in the Timing.... Check out the full article for more insights.


I usually focus on trends in apps and games, but once in a while, a service provider makes a move I see as pivotal, and have to bring it up. This week it was Twitter selling its mobile ads platform MoPub to AppLovin, which went public and acquired an attribution network this year.

Twitter getting out of the services business isn't new. A few years ago, they sold Fabric, a mobile usage analytics platform Twitter has been running since 2014, to Google. Unlike Fabric, however, MoPub is generating hundreds of millions in revenue.

Comparing the sale price to the revenue gives MoPub a sad valuation and really shows how much Twitter wanted the platform gone. But one's loss is another's gain.

The winner here is AppLovin, who's growing in a fashion that should scare ad king Facebook. Why? Sheer scale.

Based on our SDK Intelligence, AppLovin is the #4 most installed ad SDK across iOS apps and games and 5th among Android apps. MoPub is 8th across both groups.

Once joined, AppLovin's network will eclipse that of Facebook among iOS apps and games by about 30%. Across Android apps and games, where Facebook's network is much larger (by an order of magnitude), AppLovin's acquisition will put a small but mainly unnoticeable dent in Facebook's dominance, leaving it in 2nd place, comfortably.

Android is where the real game is for ad providers right now, "thanks" to Apple's App Tracking Transparency update, which made life much harder for everything ad-related in the App Store.

On Google Play, AppLovin will maintain its 5th place after MoPub is absorbed, and faces strong competition from Unity's ad network and StartApp, which rank 3rd and 4th.

Wait, what about Google ads? I purposely left those out because Google's reach is so much wider than any other ad network, and by a lot. No one's challenging them any time soon...

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


Related Resources

Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High
Insights
Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High

I recently gave a keynote at the App Promotion Summit about the state of mobile apps. My overall theme was to highlight ...

The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September
Insights
The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September

The data has been analyzed, and the top earners across the iOS App Store and Google Play for September 2024 are ready to...