Apple expanding ads to its first-party Apps

According to Bloomberg reports, Apple plans to expand its ads business to Apple’s apps to boost its revenue. Last year, Apple released an App Tracking Transparency for iPhones feature with a popup that asked if users wanted to allow apps on their phones to target the user for ads, and most users opted out. 

While the changes have been marketed as a win for users, they’re also benefitting Apple’s advertising. App Tracking Transparency changed the ad business world and presented challenges to advertising companies. Many major ad business companies like Facebook and Google have reportedly been hit with the loss of revenue, and Snapchat lost significant revenue. According to Forbes, Apple’s privacy changes on iPhone have cut the average mobile advertiser’s return on investment by about 40% and resulted in mobile ad spending drop by 25%.

“We at Apple believe that privacy is a fundamental human right,” Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, said in a privacy-conference keynote 2018 in Brussels. But customers are concerned about Apple moving towards selling or sharing their customer’s data with advertisers for profit. 

Looking at the recent display of ads in the iOS App store, Apple might charge Google to show its ads on first-party apps like App Store, Stocks, News, and Maps. Apple is slowly moving toward Google and Facebook, and the difference is getting narrower quarter by quarter.