The Duopoly Faces a New Challenger: Apple

The Google-Meta duopoly that’s ruled digital advertising for the past decade continues to erode. That rallying cry has been echoed before, given the rise of Amazon’s ad business that’s quickly gaining market share. It’s primed for first-party ad placement (privacy friendly) in the world’s biggest store.

But this time, we’re talking about a different player: Apple. The rise of its ad business likewise isn’t new information (see our coverage here), but is seen in new light based on how it got here. Specifically, it can be argued that it utilized the power of its platform to diminish other ad networks before pouncing.

This most notably includes the app tracking transparency (ATT) measures that apply several restrictions on user targeting for any app installed on iOS. For example, new transparency exists in the form of push notifications that inform users that a given app is tracking them… with an easy option to disable it.

If this was indeed pre-meditated to take out competitors, it’s strategically robust and diabolical at the same time. In a more practical sense, it’s a question of if this adds fuel to the fire for regulatory action against major tech platforms (very much including Apple) for abusing marketplace powers.

Is Apple Beefing up its Ads Business?

Unchecked Ad Tech

To quantify much of the above, a new study from Appsumer tracks Apple’s digital ad momentum – possibly giving ammunition to Anti-Apple regulatory action. Specifically, the report validates that Apple has gained market share following its ad-diminishing privacy measures, while Google and Facebook fell.

Specifically, Apple’s advertiser adoption rate in Q2 grew about 4 points year-over-year to 94.8 percent while Facebook fell 3 points to 82.8 percent and Google declined 2 points to 94.8 percent. The Apple advertising options in question involve app-install ads in its App Store and other developing formats.

Meanwhile, developer spend on online advertising tracked by Appsumer (a.k.a, share of wallet) shows Google in the lead at 34 percent. That’s followed by Facebook (28 percent) and Apple (15 percent). These figures don’t speak to market share, but do signal Apple’s ad business rise in general.

It can also be argued that Apple’s ad business growth is totally innocent. Indeed, it saw the age of unchecked ad-tech as bad for consumers and for society as a whole (with lots of tangible evidence). So it made legitimate business moves to position its core business (devices) as the privacy-friendly option.

And Apple can afford to do so because it doesn’t need your data to sell iPhones. Apple and Google’s core businesses can’t say the same. So Apple decided to leverage that lack of reliance on consumer data to elevate itself. That required diminishing the ad businesses of networks operating on its platform.

Amazon’s Emboldens its ‘Duopoly-Killer’ Power Play

Long Game

All of that adds up… but then gets a bit dicey with Apple’s move to escalate its own ad business. It puts all of the above moves and the case for legitimacy in question. It creates a perceived conflict of interest in its platform power, which hands damning evidence to its detractors and regulators.

This could be seen as a questionable move but it is Apple after all, so maybe it’s playing a long game that we’re not seeing yet. Meanwhile, its ad business has left the train station and it should be fairly well positioned given that Apple owns the hardware and operating systems at the center of our digital lives.

We’ll see where it goes from there, and the degree to which it upends the advertising competitive landscape. If Apple is to do so without torpedoing its own core business, it will have to tread carefully. Or it has a well-formulated game plan up its sleeve. You never know with Apple’s chess moves.

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