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The Hollywood mobile software products firm Mandalay Digital Group adds to its recent acquisitions with Appia, a network designed to court mobile users.
Precise numbers from the deal remain undisclosed, but Appia, currently based in Durham, North Carolina, has equity valued at $65 million as of this week. Appia said it has driven 85 million app installations for its advertisers, including more than half of the top 100 highest grossing apps in Google Play and Apple's app store. As Appia rebrands as part of Mandalay's Digital Turbine network, its new owner will assume $10 million in debt on its behalf.
“The combination of Digital Turbine and Appia creates a single unique mobile app and app ecosystem that offers an app agnostic approach through which wireless carriers, OEMs and distributors can enhance their own revenue generation as the majority of app installs today goes to both Facebook and Google,” said Mandalay CEO Bill Stone on the company's quarterly earnings call yesterday. “This transaction is truly transformative for Digital Turbine, as it vertically integrates our largest ad partner. It’s timely now impart because of the ramp that we’ve begun to experience with our carrier partners with new device rollouts and integrating application sales at this particular time, makes operational and financial sense.”
Stone said on the call that Mandalay Digital will change its corporate name to Digital Turbine, under which it will trade on NASDAQ.
The fresh acquisition of Appia is part of a growth spurt for Mandalay that may be ongoing. In October, it acquired Xyo, 'an app for apps' that simplifies the cumbersome process of finding the highly specific apps that increasingly well-served consumers now demand.
