Yahoo Seeks To Grow Mobile Display With Flurry Acquisition

There was a rumor circulating last week that Yahoo was buying

Flurry for north of $350 million. That rumor (though not the price) was confirmed today when Yahoo officially announced it was buying the company.

Flurry was being shopped apparently and Yahoo needed a mobile ad network/platform that extends its reach beyond the boundaries of Yahoo itself. Flurry got the nod:

When completed, our acquisition of Flurry will be a meaningful step for the company and reinforces our commitment to building and supporting useful, inspiring and beautiful mobile applications and monetization solutions. By joining Yahoo, Flurry will have resources to speed up the delivery of platforms that can help developers build better apps, reach the right users, and explore new revenue opportunities. Together, we will make Yahoo mobile experiences better through products that are more personalized and more inspiring.

Last week Yahoo announced Q2 earnings, which saw its display revenues decline 7 percent YoY. One potential area for growth is in mobile. But to do that Yahoo needed to buy a third party exchange or network.

I had speculated just last week that one of the forthcoming Alibaba-fueled acquisitions would be a mobile exchange or large network:

Yahoo will need to buy more reach/scale and possibly technology, which would likely mean a mobile ad exchange (including programmatic) or large scale network. Millennial Media, for example, is now worth less than $400 million – putting it on the short list. However it might prefer a more global player, ultimately offering a larger revenue opportunity.

In Flurry Yahoo gets both technology and reach (including internationally). Flurry operates its own in-app network but also can programmatically buy across mobile exchanges. Here are some of the Flurry numbers that Yahoo shared in its announcement-post:

1. 170,000 developers use Flurry Analytics

2. Flurry sees app activity from 1.4 billion devices monthly

3. Flurry sees 5.5 billion app sessions per day

4. Flurry Analytics is in 7 apps per device on average

5. 8,000 publishers monetize with Flurry

6. Flurry works with mobile developers in 150 countries

Flurry was an early leader in mobile analytics before becoming an ad platform/network. Both pieces (targeting and reach) are critical to Yahoo’s continued display growth.