After purchasing Yahoo and combining the business with AOL, Verizon now operates Oath as a subsidiary company. Samsung and Oath have signed a deal to install four apps on all Galaxy S9 and S9+ devices sold through Verizon.
As part of the deal, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, Oath's Newsroom app, and Go90 mobile video app will be pre-loaded onto new Verizon Galaxy devices. Oath is aiming to achieve more ad views through the mobile multimedia apps instead of turning to traditional cable TV for advertising.
Over the next two years, the number of users consuming video content on smartphones is expected to grow by 8 percent, reaching 196.4 million by 2020. During this same time period, the number of viewers for traditional TV is expected to drop by up to 50 percent down to 295.9 million.
Under the agreement, Oath will be able to insert native ads that mesh with on-screen content anywhere within Oath's own apps and also within Samsung's Galaxy app. Oath CEO Tim Armstrong says, "You can't be more direct than being on the mobile phone home screen and app environment."
Oath and Samsung will be sharing ad revenue but the exact terms of revenue sharing will not be disclosed.
How many ads consumers are willing to accept remains to be seen. Microsoft has somewhat subtly introduced suggested apps in Windows 10 but allows what amounts to self-promoted ads to be turned off. Samsung and Oath are unlikely to allow their ads to be disabled. Given that flagship smartphones are unquestionably expensive for the average consumer, at what point does the unnecessary attempt to squeeze every last dime of revenue out become too much?