Apple to bring iAd mobile ad platform to Japan

Apple and Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Inc. are teaming up to bring the California-based company's iAd advertising network for portable devices to Japan early next year, the companies said Wednesday.

Dentsu, Japan's largest ad agency, will sell advertising space and produce commercials to be distributed through the iAd network to iPhone and iPod touch users in the country.

Apple launched the iAd network in the United States in July, which exclusively targets the firm's devices, enabling advertising through applications used by iPhone and iPod touch users running the company's iOS 4 operating system.

According to Apple, application developers who incorporate advertisements using iAd get 60 percent of income generated by them.

Competition in the mobile advertising space is increasingly fierce.

Last year Google bought AdMob for 750 million dollars and on the same day the Internet powerhouse threw down the gauntlet to Apple by unveiling its own smartphone, the Nexus One.

(c) 2010 AFP