Twitter Sells Mobile Ad Firm MoPub to AppLovin for $1.05 Billion

Twitter said the transaction will allow it to better focus on its own platform.

Photo: stephen lam/Reuters

Oct. 6, 2021 6:46 pm ET

Twitter Inc. is selling mobile ad firm MoPub to AppLovin Corp. for $1.05 billion in cash, the company said Wednesday.

MoPub allows app publishers to make money by selling ad slots on their apps, and helps advertisers reach certain audiences on mobile apps, among other offerings.

Twitter purchased the company in 2013 in a deal estimated at the time to be worth more than $350 million.

MoPub says it now helps 45,000 apps source advertising via its exchange. It generated about $188 million in revenue in 2020, according to Twitter.

Twitter said the transaction will allow it to better focus on its own platform, citing offerings such as its performance-based advertising products and e-commerce initiatives.

“The sale of MoPub positions us to concentrate more of our efforts on the massive potential for ads on our website and in our apps,” Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. He reiterated a previously announced goal to at least double Twitter’s total annual revenue to at least $7.5 billion in 2023 from $3.7 billion in 2020.

AppLovin, which makes tools for developers of apps to improve marketing and revenue and runs its own mobile-game apps, went public earlier this year. The company’s stock was up more than 9% in after-hours trading following the announcement of the acquisition. Twitter’s stock rose about 2%.

Adding MoPub will help AppLovin assemble more demand and competition for publishers’ ad impressions, AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi said in a blog post.