Oath Inc., the digital content subsidiary of Verizon as announced a deal to pre-load several apps on the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ purchased through Verizon. Eventually other Samsung devices sold through Verizon will likely see the same treatment. The initial apps included in the announcement include Newsroom, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Go90, a mobile video app.
By rolling out these apps to new Samsung devices, Verizon and Oath hope to achieve a couple goals. One is to capitalize on Verizon's investments in Yahoo and AOL over the past few years by getting their apps out in front of more users who may not otherwise give them a look. Oath CEO Tim Armstrong says the move will also help get content and advertising in front of users, especially those who prefer to consume content via a smartphone versus other means.
Armstrong notes that advertisers will have the ability to include “native ads” within the content and apps that are being distributed. For advertisers, Armstrong says this gets things “one step closer to being direct to consumer.”
Although details of the agreement were not provided, Armstrong did say Samsung and Oath will share ad revenues generated by this new scheme.
source: Reuters
