SMARTNEWS LAUNCHES U.S. ADVERTISING BUSINESS, EXPANDING FOOTPRINT IN U.S. TECH MARKET

Highly engaged and educated users make SmartNews a unique and lucrative opportunity for advertisers

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SmartNews Inc., the global leader in redefining information and news discovery, announced today the launch of its U.S. focused advertising business. This announcement follows the news of SmartNews' "double unicorn" status, achieved through a $230 million Series F investment, earmarked for further U.S. investment. The U.S. advertising business will be led by SmartNews' Chief Advertising Business Officer and former longtime Google advertising executive, Kevin O'Kane.

With over 50 million downloads to-date and over 1 billion articles viewed on its platform every month, SmartNews has now opened the door for U.S. advertisers to capitalize on its lucrative momentum and user base. Highlights of SmartNews' user demographic include:

• Highly Engaged: SmartNews is the news app industry leader in user engagement, with average users spending 19 minutes per day on the app.*
  
  
• Highly Educated and Strong Earning Potential: Compared to the average U.S. citizen, the average SmartNews user has a higher degree of education and a higher annual household income.⁺

Additional advertising platform strengths include:

• Trusted by both Users and Brands: SmartNews is perceived as the least biased app on the market due to its commitment to coverage from all perspectives. In addition to more than 3,000 trustworthy sources delivering balanced information, SmartNews' rigorous third-party verification ensures the safety of brands featured on the platform.
  
  
• Local and National News: SmartNews supports both local and national journalism, giving users access to all of the information they need in order to make informed , fact-based decisions.

"After remaining the #1 news app in Japan for decades running, the launch of our U.S. advertising business marks the next natural step in our evolution as a global company," said Ken Suzuki, Chief Executive Officer at SmartNews. "We're excited to be able to give U.S. advertisers the opportunity to leverage our platform to reach the most engaged users out of any news app on the market today."

"I'm excited to tackle this new challenge of leading the U.S. advertising business at SmartNews," said Kevin O'Kane, Chief Advertising Business Officer at SmartNews. "After over a decade at Google, I was drawn to SmartNews because of their unique and advantageous advertising value proposition that no one else in the market can claim. We're excited to partner with brands that want to be front-and-center with our highly engaged audience, allowing them to fully harness the power of our platform and maximize their return on investment."

For more information about advertising opportunities at SmartNews, please visit: https://us-advertising.smartnews.com

*Source: Comscore data, January 2022
⁺Source: Education Attainment: US Census Bureau + Comscore Plan Metrix, June 2022

Founded in 2012, SmartNews is a leading global information and news discovery company, dedicated to delivering quality information to the people who need it. SmartNews provides news that matters to millions of users thanks to its unique machine learning technology and relationships with more than 3,000 global publisher partners.

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SOURCE SmartNews, Inc.

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