San Francisco The technology company Apple has informed developers about new ways to advertise their applications on Apple devices. Soon, additional advertising space will be unlocked within the app store, Apple announced in a message to developers on Tuesday, as the Handelsblatt learned. An Apple spokesperson confirmed the move to US broadcaster CNBC.
Currently, there are two advertising places in the app Store: one on the main “Search” tab and one in the search results. In July, Apple announced two new ad slots. You are on the App Store homepage “Today” as well as on individual app pages.
Apple is expected to generate sales of around five billion dollars this year alone from the advertising played out during the search in the App Store, says analyst Wamsi Mohan from Bank of America. The advertising turnover last year was estimated by the investment bank Bernstein at around four billion dollars. According to the bank’s calculations, Apple’s advertising revenue was only around $ 300 million in 2017. Apple itself does not break down advertising revenue in the quarterly figures.
According to Handelsblatt information, Apple is also considering advertising spaces elsewhere within Apple’s own apps on the iPhone and iPad. Already today, in addition to advertising in the App Store, Apple also plays advertising in the stock exchange application and in the news app on iPhones and iPads. Media organizations that provide content for the platform are also involved in the revenue from advertising in the News app. In the future, these advertising spaces could also be expanded.
The move follows a drastic restriction of personalized advertising that Apple had implemented with an update of the iOS operating system last year. With the so–called App Tracking Transparency – ATT for short – users can choose whether they want to allow advertisers to display targeted offers. Companies such as the Facebook group Meta use this option to create user profiles across individual apps.
Eight out of ten users have limited the use of the data
Many Apple users used the new option to restrict personalized advertising. According to Apple, around eight out of ten users have limited the use of their data using ATT. Advertising-driven companies such as Meta, Twitter or Snap suffered a billion-dollar drop in sales as a result. Meta alone assumed a decline in sales of around ten billion dollars in 2022.
It is ironic that Apple of all people is now using the situation to expand advertising as a new profit driver, wrote Bloomberg journalist and Apple expert Mark Gurman in an analysis. Similar to personalized advertising from other platforms, Apple also uses information such as user data and data stored in the Apple account to decide which advertising is displayed to a user. “This does not look like a policy where data protection is at the forefront,” criticized Gurman. The Apple spokesperson told CNBC that the advertising is strictly controlled and follows high standards for data protection.
