Thursday, March 29, 2007

China's Casee Launches Mobile Cost Per Click Ads Network

Beijing based Casee is doing similar business to Shanghai based Madhouse Inc and Focus Media (Nasdaq: FMCN). WAP sites insert a piece of code from Casee. Then advertisers can buy these advertising slots from Casee with cost per click model. Revenue splits between Casee and WAP sites in 4:6. Simply put, it’s like Google Adsense on WAP site. Average cost per click is about rmb 0.08 - 0.12.

Casee was founded in Dec. 2006 by former Linktone CTO Ye Xin. It’s rumored to be raising series A funding.

Ads network is hot in China and we can expect well connected, professional and branded player to enter this market in the next six to twelve months. Existing ads networks are providing platform to connect advertisers and websites. But advertisers need more professional service to help them planning campaign and establish long term engagement with communities. Traditional PR and Advertising companies, search engines and existing giant media publishers have strong competitive advantage in this field.

Speaking of mobile advertising in China, it is still at an early stage in comparison to Web advertising. China has a large mobile user base and the numbers of mobile internet users are growing rapidly. China mobile internet user base will surpass the regular PC internet user base by the end of 2008 according to MII and CNNIC.

However, with the constant threat of China Mobile clamping down on any aspect of China’s wireless industry, and with independent WAP sites already facing pressure from the dominant force that is China Mobile, it is still too early to tell how the mobile marketing industry will shake out in China.

Advertisers and investors should be paying close attention to what Casee and others in the mobile marketing space are doing over the next few years.

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