ComScore acquires mobile specialist M:Metrics in $44m deal

US-- Web audience research agency ComScore has acquired mobile media measurement firm M:Metrics in a deal worth $44.3m cash, plus share options.

ComScore plans to increase the size of M:Metrics' panel of phone users and offer measurement of combined internet usage across PC and mobile platforms.

The company announced plans to branch out into mobile measurement earlier this year.

Magid Abraham, ComScore's president and CEO, said yesterday's acquisition “puts us two years ahead of where we would have been with our own expansion plans”.

He said: “M:Metrics brings compelling products and an established customer base of over 180 clients. Adding ComScore's capabilities and scale to this mix will significantly enhance the company's future growth and performance.”

ComScore had earlier worked with M:Metrics' rival Telephia to develop MobileWeb Metrix – which compared audiences for internet content on PCs and mobile phones.

“Customer take-up was pretty low,” said Abraham on a conference call with analysts this morning. However not long after the launch of the joint offering Telephia was acquired by The Nielsen Company, which owns ComScore's main competitor Nielsen Online.

The M:Metrics deal is set to ratchet up the rivalry between the two firms as Nielsen is looking to dominate measurement of ‘third screen' devices – mobile phones and other handheld media players. Today it launched Mobile @Plan, a new service providing demographic and lifestyle information on the users of 200 mobile websites.

Following the ComScore buyout, the co-founders of M:Metrics, president and CEO Will Hodgman and chief product architect Seamus McAteer, will join ComScore's management team.

M:Metrics first rose to prominence in 2005 after WPP's research arm Kantar and two venture capital firms invested $7m in the business. Last year it partnered with Kantar-owned BMRB to incorporate its mobile media consumption data into the latter's TGI media planning tool.

Kantar executives could not be reached for comment today.

Author: James Verrinder