NYC’s xAd has announced projected annual revenue of $250 million, giving it the potential to be the highest-earning player in mobile location marketing.
The company, which utilises location data to drive sales for retailers, made the announcement off the back of a 100% growth in revenue year on year.
If the forecast comes into fruition, it puts xAd ahead of companies such as Amazon and LinkedIn in regards to revenue derived from mobile display advertising, according to a report by eMarketer.
Its vast growth has been attributed to an ‘explosion’ in the use of location intelligence among marketers, as consumers increasingly turn to their mobile devices to make purchasing decisions.
‘A category in itself’
Spend on location-based marketing among advertisers is only set to increase over the next four years, says eMarketer, with 90% of adult smartphone owners in the US claiming to have used location services in 2015, up 16% from 2013.
Commenting on its forecasted earning, xAd’s CEO and founder Dipanshu Sharma said ‘location’ had “become a category in itself”. According to Sharma, this represents a critical factor for brands to consider when attempting to engage with consumers and ultimately influence buying decisions.
“In the last 12 months alone, we’ve seen a significant global increase of capital investment into the space and predict location buying to reach the same levels of investment that mobile did earlier in the decade.”
XAd now boasts presence in over ten countries and claims to hold 70% of the world’s ‘quick service restaurant’ (QSR) brands in its portfolio.
The company most recently caught PerformanceIN’s eye for its work with fast food chain KFC, where it drove a considerable uplift in-store visits and a 40% increase in click-through rates to nearby consumer handsets.