Ready for your close-up? Why one of the world’s hottest selfie apps is throwing its support behind UID 2.0

Meitu sees the identity solution as a way to build new business at scale

Meitu is a China-based tech company that makes wildly successful selfie-apps that allow users to apply filters and enhancement to their photos. People can, for instance, touch up blemishes, experiment with new looks, add virtual bling or create avatars. The company boasts 885 million users outside of China, including millions in the United States. It’s fair to say Meitu supercharged selfie-culture in Asia and beyond. And in doing so, Meitu apps are now among the popular and widely used around the world.

It recently announced its support for the Unified ID 2.0 initiative—the soon-to-be open-source, interoperable identity solution that has seen widespread adoption by publishers and marketers alike. As a leader in the mobile app space, Meitu’s support for UID 2.0 is significant. The integration — specifically for Meitu’s global inventory outside of China — will bring the identity solution into Asia’s mobile-dominant digital economy.

“Mature and developed markets carry the heavy legacy of the desktop Internet era, whereas Asia’s mobile-first markets, with their skyrocketing smartphone adoption rates, have provided a unique position to experiment and develop new business models on mobile, primarily driven by commerce,” Cyrion Wang, head of programmatic at Meitu Inc., tells The Current.

The integration of UID 2.0 across this mobile-focused landscape will have huge implications for marketers in the region. Research by The Trade Desk has revealed that, in Southeast Asia, the mobile phone remains the most important device for consuming content — video and otherwise. And according to a report by eMarketer, the Asia-Pacific region has the lion’s share of mobile phone video viewership: by 2023, 60 percent of the world’s video viewership will take place in Asia, versus 8 percent in North America. These figures rise even further among younger viewers, especially the much-prized Gen Z demographic.

As a leading global mobile app developer, Meitu is ready to capture the potential of this youthful market. Adoption of UID 2.0 will help marketers better understand its selfie-snapping audience, says Wang. “For marketers, Unified ID 2.0 operates across advertising channels including mobile, audio, browsers, OTT/TV apps and devices with a single ID. This will be critical as they look to understand their audiences on Meitu and across other platforms while creating a better standard that gives consumers greater transparency and control,” he adds.