Telkom Marked Its Entrance to Ads Business by Launching U-Ad

Local telecommunication giant Telkom recently announced its involvement in digital advertising sector though its newly-introduced U Ad, a platform that facilitates advertisers and publishers who are registered  after Telkom Group.

This service will be managed by one of Telkom’s subsidiaries, PT Metranet, from this day on. Metranet’s CEO Widi Nugroho stated that U Ad was based on the absence of prominent local digital advertising platform in Indonesia, hance U Ad was born to bridge publishers, advertisers, and agencies in conducting their advertising activities effectively and efficiently.

The digital advertising sector in Indonesia indeed is very promising. Nugroho claimed that 50% of the transaction in digital advertising market are done through Google, making Google as the lone ranger of this business. Thus, U Ad is expected to increase the bargaining position of local pubsliehers.

“With U Ad, we can get more than small transactions,” Nugroho said in U Ad launching in Jakarta.

The digital advertising industry is predicted to reach Rp 12 trillion of valuation this year and will keep increasing until reaching Rp 35 trillion by 2019. emarketer even published data in 2014 suggesting that advertising done through mobile internet may experience more than 100% of annual increase until 2018.

With such projection, Nugroho assumed that the platform vendors will enjoy 3-5% of the valuation, while the rest goes to agents and publishers. “We target to be the biggest in the market and control 30% of marketshare in 2019,” he told Kompas.

Metranet has something that can help U Ad to directly challenge Google. It is the ability to do profiling of each and every person who accesses internet through Telkom’s cellular and regular network, as well as products like Indi Home and Telkomsel.

The data enables U Ad to absorb different insight so that the posted ads can be more relevant to the targeted users. Nugroho added that accuracy is U Ad’s main point as the platform will post the ads in places that match the targeted users.