What’s happening with Apple’s iAd — the costly mobile advertising network the company thought would make hay?
Not much. So says Piper Jaffray business analyst and Apple expert Gene Munster. At a recent Business Insider Ignition conference, Munster all but called iAd a zombie (ostensibly alive, but actually dead) and expressed more optimism about Apple Pay as a source of business profit for the corporation.
“Steve Jobs launched iAd in 2010 to lend Apple’s devices — and design cachet — to mobile advertising, which he declared “really sucks,” noted a story in AdAge. “The service debuted with several large brand advertisers, but its high cost — upwards of $10 million for exclusive categories — kept others at bay.”
Though iAd lowered rates, then later opened the platform to additional marketers, added video ad capabilities, and expanded to multiple new countries, eMarketer estimates Apple accounted for a measly 2.5 percent of the U.S. mobile advertising market in 2013, substantially behind Google and Facebook.
“iAd just got run over by Google and Facebook,” Munster said. “Apple has really missed the boat on this.”
Munster does, however, feel more bullish on the future of Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment offering. That, he said, could surpass PayPal in transaction volume “in the next couple years.”
