Mobvista to invest $100 million in India in next three years

Bengaluru: Global mobile advertising and game publishing company Mobvista International Technology Ltd is planning to invest as much as $100 million in its India business by 2018 with an eye on the boom in e-commerce and ad-tech space.

The company which counts Flipkart, PayTM, OLX, Jabong, Freecharge, Yatra and Newshunt as its domestic clients, covers 200 countries with 10 billion daily impressions.

Currently, Mobvista provides videos, games, ringtones and pictures as value-added services in the Indian market.

"India accounts for nearly 20% of our total revenues," said Wei Duan, chief executive officer and founder of Mobvista, on the sidelines of the ongoing Global Mobile Internet Conference in Bengaluru.

He said the $100 million investment would help the company triple its India revenue by 2018. It is currently $60 million while the overall revenue is $300 million. Mobvista will reach $200 million in 2015.

Fueled by the rapid growth of smartphone and Internet penetration, ad-tech companies have deployed aggressive strategies to capture a bigger share of the nearly $1 billion advertising spend in India.

InMobi Technologies Pvt. Ltd is reportedly in talks to raise around $45 million to further expand its products over the next year. Digital media network company SVG Media Pvt. Ltd acquired Komli Media’s India business and global brand rights in August.

Mobvista is said to have shortlisted a few companies it intends to acquire to expand its business in India, Duan said, but declined to name them. “The budget for acquiring companies is besides the $100 million investments into India,” Duan said and added that it may also invest in start-ups.

Mobvista has raised $50 million investments from China’s Shanghai Media Group and Mango TV and NetEase Inc. Duan said that Mobvista will take its headcount in India up from three to 20 by 2016. The company has nearly 300 employees worldwide. Mobvista's Chinese advertisers include Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, among others.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.